Cleansing
by HalcyonSeasons
Summary: When fate offers you an opportunity so much grander than life itself, what do you do with it? Do you take that chance, or shy away for the typical? Do you stick to what you know because it's a safe haven, or find yourself in what you don't because, honestly, life is too short? Leah's not going to make the same mistake—not again. Here's to finally having a choice. Post-BD AU.
1. Messy

_**Author's Note: **__(Rated T for language and mature themes.) So I saw this list on Tumblr. It was a list of thirteen rules to live by, to feel better, and to overall be happy. I thought it was inspiring and I also thought of Leah Clearwater. Here's a little story of how a post-Breaking Dawn Leah cleanses her mind and finally lives._

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_**Cleansing**_

* * *

**I**

Leah Clearwater takes in a deep breath, closes her eyes, and continues to sit in the tall tree. Her knuckles are nearly white as she grips the rope in her hands. Maybe if she weren't such a freak of nature—such a nagging, troublesome side-effect of a normal life—she could do this in a place where she felt more comfortable. That would make things a little better, though nothing is better. That one quote, "It gets better," is bullshit to Leah. Nothing gets better when you're Leah.

_1. Do not kill yourself. Killing yourself is very messy and your mother will cry over you. It is not beautiful or brave, and even if it was, you will not be around to see that._

In a perfect edition of this world, Leah would be at home. Leah would be at home again—completely alone, since there was no other way—and in her little closet, standing up on a box to tying a knot around her clothing rod. She can see it now perfectly. Clearly. Like nothing else in the universe.

In a perfect edition of this world, Leah would be dressed up again—oh, she would be dressed up _so_ nicely—in possibly a skirt. Maybe even a dress. She has a lovely, totally feminine, purple sundress one just in her preferred suicide spot, though it's too small. That's only of many problems with phasing: none of your clothes fit afterward.

At this moment, in her perfect edition of this world, Leah would be not twenty-five like she is now, but nineteen again. She can't believe it let it go on this long. And Leah would be positioning the belt around her neck again. She would take her last thoughts as she stands on the box, and they would be of meaning. They would be to her mother and father, and to her younger brother, Seth. To Sam. Maybe even to Jacob. She wouldn't mess up again.

And then Leah would step off the box again. She would do it confidently and float… _up, up, and away…._

It's honestly too bad that she's made of muscle. It's awfully wretched that the clothing rod, made entirely of cheap plastic, couldn't—and still can't—hold her weight. It's downright embarrassing that her air supply couldn't even be cut off right.

It's terribly unfortunate that on her first suicide attempt, she crashed to her bedroom floor and took the rods and shelves of her closet down with her in a loud crash of a fallen angel (as if that's what she is, anyway).

Quickly untying the belt from her neck as she muttered enough words under her breath to make her dear grandmother cry in her grave, her mother, Sue, rushed to her room. Well, at least Leah _thought_ she was alone.

"Oh my God!" Sue cried. "Leah, baby, what are you _doing_?"

_You don't care_, Leah thought glumly. _Don't fucking lie to yourself and especially don't lie to me._

Leah didn't reply, and her mother's eyes grew even wider. They both knew what Leah was doing. The nineteen-year-old simply looked up at her mother from her bedroom floor to give it away. The mess of too-small clothing, board games, and the wooden shelves that used to hold them made it as clear as the sky (and not the La Push sky, obviously, but the sky somewhere).

Tears filled Sue's eyes, and this is what Leah expected. Almost exactly, minus the fact that she is still here to see it.

"I was organizing my closet," Leah said lamely. It was a bad excuse—why couldn't Leah do anything right?—and her mother wasn't buying it.

"Leah, don't do this to me."

Leah stood up easily and brushed off her dress. It truly was a pretty color on her. She vaguely wondered if it would look nice against a paler version of her skin tone, and she immediately felt like absolute shit for it. If anything, she _deserved_ to be dead.

"I'm okay, Mom," she assured the middle-aged woman who was almost in tears. "I'm okay."

Her mother reached out to hug her, and she instinctively stepped away. _Don't_, she mouthed. She wasn't going to phase on her mother—not again, though if she did, it would be fine since there was nobody else home to give a heart attack aside from Sue. But Leah was not a person meant to be touched. She was not meant to be seen, heard, bothered, _or_ touched, for that matter. Only this wasn't different. More different than anything else.

The one time anybody wanted to touch Leah in months, she backed away. Even from her own mother. Leah knew—oh, she was _positive_—she would make the poor older woman cry either way. Anything for less emotion on her behalf, though. Anything.

But that was then; this is now.

Leah is not in the comfort—yet absolute alien atmosphere—of her own home; she is in the woods, which, she guesses, is her new home.

She is no longer nineteen, and she far past cut the crap of wearing dresses. She is in a tank top and cutoff shorts. _Pack couture. _She snorts.

The obvious differences between this attempt and the last one are crucial. The obvious attempts are… well, _obvious_. Anyone can see that. Only there's one strikingly terrifying similarity.

Leah is scared.

A shit excuse for a closet rod can't kill Leah, but a tree can. Isn't this what she wants, though? To be done with?

She is not like Quil—she does not love phasing in the least bit. She unconditionally detests it. Leah has hated phasing since the second she started, and she's been trying to stop for years. She's twenty-five now. Twenty-five! She's young, but she is _old_. Everyone in the pack—both Jacob's and Sam's—has found their imprint. She's met and shaken hands with all her "soon-to-be sisters-in-law" now. She's been invited to Sam and Emily's wedding, as if she's going to go, anyway. Everybody has somebody. Everybody but her.

A part of her wants to not do this; that little part is screaming at her, chanting at her that she can do it, she can do it, _she can do it._ She can leave and find love… maybe. She can leave, period.

Another part of her laughs at Leah, telling her that her time is up. She's not going to find love; she's not even going to find herself. She can't do it, she can't do it, _she can't do it._

But can she do this?

She opens her eyes and looks down to the forest floor. God, it is an awfully long fall from up here. She takes another deep breath, says a prayer, and eventually lets the rope go. It falls a long, slow fall to the floor, making minimal noise.

_I'm gonna die someday,_ she decides. _But today is not that day._

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_**A/N: **__This is a very short story, by the way. Only thirteen chapters. Feedback is always appreciated._


	2. Welcoming

_**A/N: **__Can't believe this is my fiftieth story. It feels like I was just finishing my first. Also, this story's time progresses in increments of six months, to clear any future confusion._

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**II**

Leah's breath is visible in the crisp autumn air. She pants hard as if she's run a mile, but she's actually run three… or was it five? But she sees her house. She sees her house, she sees her house, _she sees her house_. The one-story home with an old roof has never looked better.

"_2. Washing your hair is going to be a chore. But you should do it anyway. Because you will feel better about yourself."_

It has been almost six months since her second—and last—suicide attempt, the one in the tree, and since then, she hasn't been home. Well, that's partly true. She went home for the last time to get a suitcase full of some clothes and what's more important to her, but she hasn't been home since then.

It is November sixteenth, and today, Leah is twenty-six years old. She can't even believe it herself.

She never thought she would run away. Isn't that what rebellious teenagers do? Leah is not a teenager. Sure, she certainly acts like one, but she is not a teenager in the least bit. Her body has stopped developing, and so has her mind. She's long stopped phasing, too. She isn't a teenager at all, if you look past her obnoxious, embarrassing, indecisive behavior.

Being away from home for so long really is something. Leah's positive of that. Especially when you do it the _human_ way. No longer phasing (because, honestly, who is she going to have to live forever for?), she had to experience the cold. She can't live in the woods for weeks—no, _months_—on end like she had before. She can't eat roadkill, as disgusting as it is, to stay alive. She has to dig in dumpsters. The only pro to being human, out in the streets, is that the pack can't find her. They never did. Her mind is her own when she's human. She and her demons can be alone once and for all without having to share the limited space.

But _hell_, being away from home really is something. It can change you, both mentally and physically. Leah hasn't had a shower in weeks—that's how bad it's gotten—and she can pretty much smell the hot water and soap and shampoo (_oh my God, shampoo!_) from here, as she approaches her house. It's calling her name. The opportunity to recollect her thoughts is also calling her name, chanting over the crunching of the leaves under her muddy shoes.

Leah didn't decide to come home on impulse; no, never that. She's kept a small calendar and pen with her, both weathered and nearly falling apart, that she can keep up with. She promised to herself last October that she would come home on her birthday, sort of as a gift to give (_snort_) but also to receive, and today is the day. November sixteenth. Sue will be pissed that she's made it all about her like always; a twenty-one-year-old Seth will be happy and slightly confused. It sounds perfect. The perfectly fucked up family reunion of the Clearwaters. Leah will be hugged and cried at for a half hour only for Sue to tell her to go do the dishes since she still lives at home and still has responsibilities to take care of.

However, when Leah gets to her front door and peers into the little window at the top—her favorite part of the house, actually—her living room is packed. Her small living room not even meant to hold two wolves and two adults is actually packed with people in every square inch, it seems.

Emphasis on the _pack_ part.

After running away to have her mind to herself—and even not being found (imagine that!), either—she is finally home, just to have the intruders back. Her mind is quiet, but she can feel it buzzing. Humming like a beehive. She can imagine herself phased again (_can that even happen?_), with all those minds in hers. Horse-sized wolves circling her, questioning her, accusing her… She shivers at the thought.

Sue has always felt safe in La Push; they all have. The Quileute tribe used to have forty-thousand acres of land, and after white settlement, they were left with two square miles. Only one good thing came out of that, and it was bonding. It was knowing everybody on the reservation and knowing that you don't really have to have your door locked if you don't want to. Sue has never wanted to, so the front door is unlocked as usual. Leah's fingers linger on the wet knob, and she eventually twists it, letting herself into the house. The second she steps in, everything—and everybody—falls silent. She is faced with the people she left. Her pack and their imprints, from Jacob's Renesmee to Paul's Rachel to Jared's Kim. Her mother is staring at her with a look stronger than anyone else's. Even Chief Swan, the leech lover's father, is there. It's like a surprise party with a delayed, _"Surprise!"_

"Leah?" Seth says in utter shock.

"Leah," Jared echoes.

"Leah!" Paul chokes out.

"Leah," Sam's deep voice strains.

"_Leah Felicity Clearwater."_ That's Sue's voice, for sure. Leah doesn't have to check twice.

"Hey," Leah finally says, calmly. For someone who's stopped phasing, she sure doesn't look very civil. She is covered in sweat. Dirt is caked under and around her nails. Her hair is stringy. She smells of the woods.

_Aaaaand_ she has company. Great. Just marvelous.

"Happy birthday," Renesmee chimes simply, and rather stupidly. Jeez, how old is she again? Seven? Seventeen? Leah never really cared for how the mutant (_the hypocrisy is real, isn't it?_) and how she grows. She looks younger than everyone except Claire, who is now ten. But God, at least Leah knows Claire wouldn't make such a lame comment. Everyone is in shock that Leah has come home, and Renesmee says something, and not even something worth saying. Bring out the chips and dip, and _then_ the thing can wish Miss Leah Felicity Clearwater, age twenty-six, a happy birthday. Now what?

Sue approaches Leah wordlessly and takes her hand. If anyone should be feeling like shit, it should be her. The last time Sue saw her one and only daughter was six months ago. She doesn't know about the suicide attempt in the woods. Come to think of it, she doesn't know anything. Nobody does, but it's not fair—it's terrible, really—that her own mother doesn't know.

"Is there anything you need, sweetie?" Sue asks, her voice low. It's a strange thing to ask, but Leah supposes that this is a strange situation, so what is there to say?

There a ton of things Leah needs. The list is limitless: answers as to why everybody is at her house on this given day at this given moment; new clothes; a long talk with her brother about life; a car for if she runs away again, for fuck's sake; the world's biggest cheeseburger with crisp, salty French fries and a cold Coke with the water running down the glass; and happiness. (Though the last two things are kind of the same thing, really.) That's just for starters, that list. But it's unattainable right now, for the most part, so Leah just nods.

"Yeah," she replies to Sue. "A shower. You haven't thrown out all my stuff yet, have you?"


	3. Exhaling

_**A/N: **__I think I'm going to update this story everyday._

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**III**

Leah's life sustains in about six or seven months. She feels her best—and sometimes her worst—in the summer and the fall, specifically around May, June, and November. She isn't sure why, but she's never been sure of too many things in her life (before she started phasing), anyway. She is sure of this, though: she is definitely going to keep sleeping.

"_3. Get up late. Have a lay in. Sleep past your alarm. You have a very long life ahead of you and for now you should appreciate the cold side of your pillow."_

Leah, at age twenty-six-and-a-half (yeah, because not only little kids count the "half" part, as if it really matters, and Leah's not that concerned with aging, anyway), is no longer living in La Push. She is exactly two hours and forty-six minutes away from it. She is in Silverdale, and the heat of June is nonexistent. Through her curtains, she can see the overcast sky. It's like she never even left La Push.

On her last birthday, she got mostly what she wanted: some new clothes (but not a new car), some happiness (but not lasting very long), and a fantastic cheeseburger (but no fries). And instead of a long talk about life in general with her brother (also known as the only person she could really stand back then), she had a long conversation with her mother. Over countless cups of tea and graham crackers in Leah's bedroom, tears (mostly from Sue) were shed, and the two came to an agreement: it was time for Leah to move out. Far past time. Leah came up with the idea, and Sue made her agree to one condition, and that was that Leah couldn't move very far. So Silverdale it is.

In a cheap apartment somewhere in the middle of town, Leah is in bed. Her alarm clock blares the crackly radio station it's set to. The pillows instantly become softer, and the blankets become warmer. Her so-so bed turns into a _real bed_.

Leah now has a job as a web designer. Five years ago, she wouldn't have thought that organizing and making things pretty would be so fulfilling. She supposes it's because she never thought she would actually be good at something in the first place, besides being angry. Even before phasing, Leah has had a bit of a temper. She took no bullshit—and still doesn't—but was much less sarcastic and more headstrong. Her temper has always been there, and when she was younger, she never thought it would go away; she planned on being a politician, just so she could debate with stupid, old, white men over women's rights.

This is good, though. No, actually, this is great. Web designing isn't her top thing, but it's one of them. She's not a computer whiz, but it's a quiet job. She can work at home, and she does—all the time. She can sit in her bedroom in her pajamas all day, and if today were some ordinary Sunday, she would be. She would lay in all day, and maybe even all night, but not today.

Tonight is her first date in years, and today she has to get a sense of mind before she loses it.

Convinced by a friend she met at the local Starbucks (since that's really the only place she goes when she's not working, anyway), Leah signed up for one of those ridiculous internet dating websites, and now she's been paired with a guy named Ryder.

Leah doesn't just hit the snooze button; she turns the alarm off. Then she sighs to herself. _Ryder_.

In all honesty, she never knew people really name their children Ryder. That's the kind of name reserved for a really attractive book character, though aside from the book character part, Ryder really is attractive.

Ryder Castillo is a twenty-nine-year-old from Bremerton, and to Leah's surprise, he's driving up to Silverdale to take her to dinner and a movie. He and Leah would look really cute together; his Hispanic (Panamanian, Leah thinks, but she can't exactly remember) looks complement her Quileute ones. He's also really funny (Leah's kind of funny) and incredibly smart (Leah's kind of smart). He's lived in Bremerton his entire life as Leah's lived in La Push her entire life. He even does web designing as well, though he's better with coding. After talking to him online plenty of times, Leah was swept off her feet quickly—much too quickly. She's still waiting for his quirks, but hopefully she won't be presented with them tonight.

Leah flips her pillow to the cool side, and she sighs again. It's smart of Ryder to take her out on a date on Sunday night; it means he's not trying to get lucky because he knows he won't. Yes, he is just Leah's kind of guy.

So Leah dreamlessly sleeps for another hour or three. She deserves it. Ryder's going to pick her up at seven in the evening, and it's only eight now. She deserves it.

It's still a strange feeling, waking up in Silverdale as opposed to La Push. Even though she's been here for three months, she's still surprised to not waking up to the sound of her mother's loud banter on the phone, or Seth's aggressive yelling at his video games. Sometimes her deceased father's booming laughter haunted her at home, and more often it's haunting her here.

Leah's always grown up around people. Anyone who didn't know her back on the rez wouldn't have guessed she was—and still is—a loner on the inside. She's dealt with little boys (who she never considered to quite catch up with her, like, ever) her entire life, and Rachel, Rebecca, and Emily always considered themselves ahead of her time, just for being a year or two older than her. She's always been the person to confide in, though, and now that she's on her own for the first time (aside from running away, of course), she kind of doesn't know what to do with herself. Is that okay? She thinks it's okay.

Making breakfast for herself is okay, too; she doesn't have to worry about Seth leaving all the milk in the world but only crumbs of her favorite cereal. She doesn't mind now, though; he's just her little brother, and that's what little brothers are supposed to do. She hasn't seen Seth since when she first moved in, but she's fine with that. On three separate occasions, she's been paranoid about her old pack storming into her little one-room apartment and causing a riot. She's established house rules—both for herself and others—and one of the top three is that people have to call first if they want to visit. End of story. She called Jacob the other weekend to tell him to tell the pack that. It's not like she's part of it anymore, so she shouldn't have to call everyone individually to deliver the same message.

After a long day of miniscule tasks including Starbucks (with Liza, her girlfriend who convinced her to try internet dating), going through her ancient makeup (_imagine that!_), and getting together her outfit (what one would call "for a grown woman," as in an appropriate black dress and heels), Leah is ready. She is completely ready for her date by five-thirty, and as she idly watches television and twiddles her thumbs. Plenty of petty thoughts flood through her mind?

_What if this is a joke? What if he's actually a creepy old man who kills women and stores cuts off their hands and stores them in a freezer? What if he doesn't even show up? What if he's a total dick?_

Suddenly, it's seven o'clock on the dot, and the buzz of her doorbell goes off. She turns off the television, stands up, rushes to the mirror, and make sure she looks okay.

_It's all yours, Clearwater._

She opens the front door, and just the guy she's seen online many times stands before her. He's a little shorter than she imagined, but she's probably a little taller than he imagined. He smiles at her, and his white teeth against his tan is lovely. There are people like Jacob who go for people void of color, and there are people like Leah who love ethnic-looking people by default. She has a type, and she's not afraid to admit it.

Yes, Ryder is just her kind of man.

Leah is thoroughly convinced of this after their date. They went to the right restaurant and saw the right movie; he said the right things, and she laughed at the right times. The date went swimmingly, and as Leah says goodbye at the door, Ryder asks if she wouldn't mind if he kisses her on the cheek.

"I don't mind," Leah replies, and she really doesn't. With a smile on both their faces, Ryder leans over and plants a simple kiss on her cheek. Her smile grows wider.

"Thank you, Miss Clearwater," he purrs in his slight Hispanic accent.

"You're very welcome, Mr. Castillo."

And eventually, he is very, _very_ welcome into her life.


	4. Scarring

_**A/N: **__Expect updates on Saturday and Sunday, but if there won't be any, then I'm sorry. Thank you all so much for the reviews, favorites, and follows._

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**IV**

A little over six months later, just the Monday before Thanksgiving, there's a knock on Leah's front door. Well, seven, actually. The same seven knocks of the man she loves; Ryder's never changed his knock—not even once. With a genuine, natural smile upon her face, she leaves her couch to answer the door, and of course, it's Ryder. Beautiful Ryder Castillo, donning a t-shirt and jeans. She's about to ask why he's not at work, but he speaks before she can.

"Leah, I just want you to know that you're still beautiful and all," he begins, "but this isn't going to work out. I'm sorry."

"_4. He is going to break your heart but he's just another male human who finds it hard to deal with Mondays, too. So in a month you'll wake up and you won't even remember that little scar on his knuckle you kissed."_

She tries to not let her face crumple so unattractively, a face that her mother always told her was ugly and not at all ladylike, but she succumbs to her emotions, and it shows on her face. The worse thing is that Ryder doesn't look sorry at all, despite what he said.

The thing is, his mother died a week ago, and he's been pushing Leah away since. She's tried to talk to him about it plenty of times, because, honestly, she should understand what he's going through. She, of all people, should understand him like nobody else, not because she's his girlfriend, but because she knows what it's like to lose a parent. Leah Clearwater should be the only person Ryder talks to in the nearly-nine-miles between Silverdale and Bremerton, all because she knows. She really, truly, deeply knows.

Maybe that's why he's breaking up with her.

Ryder tries to reason with her as he stands on her doorstep—her still in the apartment—like the sorry sack of shit he is, and it's not going through to Leah. It hasn't been going through since he started with, _Leah, I just want you to know that you're still beautiful._ It's like now that they're breaking up, she's not beautiful. What bullshit. She sneers at him as he tries to reason his with her. At least she knows an outside source (like that motherfucking magic trick called imprinting) isn't preventing him from being with her; it's just him.

It's not hard to understand: he's a bit of a coward. He doesn't know what he has in front of him, either. Leah knows that, for sure, but she can't help but acknowledge the fact that they were going to _do something_ and _be something_. He hasn't popped any pretty questions, but they were even planning on living together in December. (That's big for Leah, but is it too big for him?) Ever since they hit it off on the first date, things have been beautiful. Absolutely lovely and blissful. Better than anything she had with Sam. Now it's gone, and Leah just now realizes that maybe Ryder's not the kind of guy for her at all. They don't have as much in common as she thought, and it's not even that she's not his kind of girl; it's that he's not her kind of guy. She's mentally breaking up with him as he does the verbal part, and that still kind of hurts, especially since this was her first relationship in years and she even thought of ending it, right as he is.

Ryder's words fill her head, but they don't translate to her brain. He's too much for her… No, he's not enough for her. She's too loud… no, she's too submissive. She listens too much and he can't take her advice… No, her advice is terrible. The only thing that convinces Leah why he's breaking up with her is because he is a coward. He can't take it. It's a gross Monday morning, his mother died just before the holidays began, and his girlfriend—as stagnant as she's trying to be—is too much right now. In a perfect world, Leah would like to believe that he'll come back for her once he gets his shit together, but the world is not perfect, and he definitely won't. That's just the way it is.

Ryder finally finishes with an, "Okay?" Leah nods, and before she can cuss him out for ruining everything they had over the past six months, he says he's sorry again, and that she'll still be beautiful without him. It's still unqualified bullshit, and it's also utterly obvious that he really isn't like her at all; _she_ would never say something so mindless and objectifying to the opposite sex.

"You're full of shit," she replies. "I've been beautiful before you, and I'll be beautiful after you, too. Okay?" Then she slams the door in his face, but instead of feeling empowered and strong after just taking down that heartless man and his objectification, but she feels the opposite. She supposes her Mondays are better than others', since she still gets to stay home and wake up at the same time, but now that she's had a taste of a shitty Monday, she can't help but feel sorry for every other working human in the world.

_*.*.*_

An even worse part to the Fall of the Epic Love Story of Leah and Ryder is that in December, they were going to attend Seth's wedding together, and everybody would see them as a couple for the first time. Sue and Seth knew about Leah and Ryder being together, but they're the only ones. And nobody—not even Seth—knows they broke up. A single Leah attending Seth's wedding to his imprint will be a surprise to her family, but not to anyone else. Maybe this is for the better.

After spending a lonesome Thanksgiving being thankful for TV dinners, whiskey, and Netflix, Leah drives the near-three-hours from Silverdale to La Push to attend his brother's wedding on December fifth. As far as she knows, Seth's the first of the pack to be married—since Sam and Emily, as well as Paul and Rachel, are taking forever—and even as Leah thinks it's because his bride is pregnant, she won't say anything.

Leah has met Alaska, her soon-to-be sister-in-law, only a few times. Alaska is a somewhat smart girl with a name that doesn't fit. Leah thinks Alaska's name is stupid, but she won't say anything. Seth imprinted on her, though, for whatever reason. (Leah doesn't think Alaska's very pretty, either, but she won't say anything about that.) When Seth calls, all he can talk about is _Alaska, Alaska, Alaska. _At least they'll be together for a long time.

Leah arrives at the reservation community center just before the ceremony starts, and after taking a seat next to her mother, who doesn't even ask about Ryder, she awaits the wedding party. By the time they're done walking down the aisle, it is shown that literally every other person in the pack but her is in the party. Colin is Seth's best man, and the rest of the pack—Brady, Jared, Paul, Sam, Embry, Quil, and Jacob—are dressed in tuxedos as groomsmen. The female counterparts are also familiar; they must all know Alaska, which wouldn't be surprising. Colin's imprint, Laura, is the maid of honor, and the rest of the imprints—Brady's Michelle, Kim, Rachel, Emily, Embry's Angelina, and even Claire and Renesmee—are lined up in their dresses and pride. It's a pretty attractive party, but Leah can't help but think Alaska isn't prepared for all of this. This is a big thing she's entering, and it's too bad she can't run. Then again, she shouldn't want to; Seth loves Alaska and Alaska loves Seth and that's the end of it. It's a shame that Seth didn't think twice to ask his own sister if she wanted to be in the bridal party; it's like he knew Leah and Ryder broke up all along. And to think of Leah being up there with the rest of the imprints and Ryder as a groomsman…

She never thought she would miss Ryder that much, but she does. She still does. Leah doesn't know much about romantic relationships to assume when she should be over it, but Ryder is not Sam, and she is definitely not over it. She's not sure if she can still imprint (probably not, though), but, God, if she could, she probably would have on Ryder. If she were _normal_ (_ha, imagine that_) and imprinted on him like any other wolf, she would have somebody by her side right now, other than her mother on her left and an older man who smells like death on her right. She and Ryder would certainly love each other more if she imprinted. Come to think of it, why _hasn't_ she imprinted on anybody yet? Leah. Carries. _Three. _Lines. If anybody should be Miss Fertile Myrtle, it should be her. There should have been a line of guys waiting to be imprinted on by her. Her wolves would be the strongest. Her period has come back with the lack of phasing, but she wonders if the magic is still here… It makes her shiver.

Oh.

Well.

Seth and Alaska are kissing.

What a quick ceremony.

Everybody has stood up, and she's the last to do so—it's embarrassing. As she claps and cheers for her twenty-two-year-old brother and his most-likely-pregnant bride, she's happy for him. She'll have a little niece or nephew soon—she's sure of it. She just wishes she could be in the bridal party, too. They could have found a date for her… right? She sighs. She'll just have to be the crabby, twenty-seven-year-old big sister/aunt/sister-in-law/utter burden that doesn't come home for every holiday, but when she does, it's certainly interesting. Leah can live up to that.

In the crowd, on the way to the reception, Sue asks Leah where Ryder is. Is he working? How's he coping with what happened to his mom? How are things between him and Leah?

When Leah reveals that things are nonexistent between her and Ryder, Sue just _tsk-tsks_. "Silly girl," she says. "Won't you ever figure out how to not be lonely?"


	5. Meaningful

_**Considerably Longer A/N:**__ Holy BALLS, y'all are good with the reviews. I love you guys so much. Really, I do. I would send all of you guys fruit baskets with the little pieces of chocolate in there, too. Because there are only thirteen chapters in total, I think I'll just private message all of you individually at the end of the story, in response to your reviews. So that's why I haven't been getting back to you guys lately—I'm usually starting up on the next chapter. In my opinion, this is one of the best writing exercises I've ever done; I'm not too riled up over the plot. I like doing this. It *cleanses* me. (Hahaha, sorry.) I hope this is refreshing you, too, in a way. Thanks again. Now here's chapter five, titled "Meaningful."_

* * *

**V**

It's time for Leah to do something different with herself, and it's not the crap she pulled over a year ago, the, "I'm being strong and independent and moving but still coming back to be miserable and filed with false hope!" crap. No. Not again. Of course, she is still living alone, but she's surer of it. At twenty-seven-and-a-half years old, Leah is positive she is going to die alone—she just knows it. It scares her more than it should, but she knows. She is perfectly aware that the imprinting magic just isn't going to strike in her. She's a genetic dead-end, but she's not infertile; just incapable of making more wolves. She doesn't mind, though; that's Seth's—and everyone else's—responsibility, and they have nothing to do with her.

Leah's responsibilities are Leah's responsibilities, and that makes as much sense in the world.

"_5. Don't spend hours looking up what your name means on google. Your name is your name and you should go out there and do heroic and good deeds and give your name your own meaning."_

She's not crazy, though; Leah knows she's not going to be a hero. As of today, a fine, fine day in June, Leah is working not one job, but two. Along with web designing, she is an employee at the satisfying public library in Silverdale. She's one of those ladies she used to admire from a distance but never say anything to, and now she knows why: librarians are smart. Über smart. They're so smart about everything and they're not afraid to show it. This job has proved that Leah has more than one thing to her, and it's nice.

Leah works at the reference desk, though, where she's behind a computer _all day long_. Not a ton of people ask for her help—or referencing—so it can get kind of lonely. Since Sue told Leah that she is inevitably lonely, back at the wedding, Leah owns up to it. That's her thing—one of them, really.

When Leah gets bored, which is most of the time, she does her other job. When she gets bored of that, she Googles and Googles and Googles. She really deserved her own computer as a kid; she would have put it to such great use.

She never Googles her own name for long—because it usually appears on baby name websites and _God forbid_ anyone assumes she's pregnant or has a child—but one time, she does. On this fine, fine day in June, she Googles her name and frowns at what appears on the embarrassingly soft pink website.

_Weary._

Christ, she knows she's a little down a lot of the time, but that really sucks.

Frustrated, she finds a different website, one with more range. It's better and worse all at the same time. In American culture, the name _Leah_ means "tired," along with "weary." In British culture, it means "meadow." That's a little better, so she smiles to herself. She frowns again at the sight of what her name means in Jamaican culture: "weary," still. In Greek, it means "glad tidings," which is relieving. In Hebrew, it means "weary; tired; delicate; soft." Leah snorts at that. In Hawaiian culture, her name means "weary one" or "cow."

Yeah, no.

She can't help her name (and _God forbid_ she goes by her middle name, Felicity), but she also can't help but wonder why her parents didn't pick out a better one. Yeah, _Seth_ means "appointed," which isn't much better, but _weary_? It could be better.

Leah reads up on the biblical play in her name, and apparently, in the Old Testament, Leah was the first wife of Jacob and the mother of his seven children. This causes Leah—the bitter, weary, genetic dead-end one sitting behind a computer in a library—to laugh. She laughs and laughs and laughs so much that everyone in the library stares at her, and she gets shushed by one of her co-workers. It's just so damn funny because what happened in the Bible does literally nothing for her. She's going to hell for that, but it's true.

One of her co-workers—an older white woman with braids like a pow-wow dancer's—approaches Leah's desk, and she quickly closes the tab that showcases the baby name website, and then opens the library's homepage, pulling up her own account for some odd reason. She greets her co-worker, Donna, with a, "Yes?" and Donna reminds Leah that it's her lunch break.

Leah didn't leave La Push—and for good, this time, as in no more weddings no matter what—just to be ordered around again. She knows for a fact that Donna doesn't want to get lunch with her; she's just trying to get her out of there since she did one little annoying thing. Then again, maybe this is good for her. She needs to get out. With a half-false/half-authentic smile towards Donna, Leah grabs her purse and goes off to lunch, and she knows just the place.

Leah has become a complete regular at the closest Starbucks. The eccentric thirty-something lady named Janet working the cash register on Monday and Friday nights, as well as the cute, zit-faced teenage boy named Grady working the cash register on the weekend afternoons and Wednesday and Thursday mornings both know Leah by name, beverage preference, and sandwich preference. They know she's a web designer turned web designer/librarian. They even know her birthday, and they treated both her and Ryder to Macchiatos on the house last November because of the fact. If anything, Leah should be working at Starbucks as opposed to a web design firm or a library, but maybe that's not just her thing. Her girlfriend Liza—the one who got her to meet Ryder online—is long gone, too, so maybe that's really just not her thing now.

Even as coffee-making (or cleaning) isn't her forté, she still likes to sit at her same little table in the back corner of the joint and use her laptop that she got when she first began web designing training. Nobody ever sits with her, though Janet and Grady have had a coffee and a conversation with her once or twice, and that's just the way she likes it.

Plenty of nice-looking men have strolled into Starbucks and gave Leah looks. Despite what Ryder implied, she hasn't gotten any less attractive without him, at least physically. Men still give looks and almost sit down, but Leah gives looks—less suggestive looks—back, and they stay away. It's fun and pitiful at the same time.

Leah would like—no, she would _love_—to say that she's perfectly fine without Ryder, but she's not. Not really. She spends less and less time at home, as well as more and more time at Starbucks, because there are too many memories of her and Ryder. Every square foot in her apartment holds a recollection of the two together, and it sort of hurts to be there. Not a lot, because she can still sleep at night, but enough.

It's like she imprinted on him without ever really imprinted on him; the memoirs are real, and so are the pain. Even from the doormat, every place is memorable, from the kitchen to the little corner of the living room to the cramped shower (_God, that was so funny the first time they showered together_) to her mattress. Her mattress especially reminds her of them and how happy they were. She may not run at a temperature of a hundred-and-eight degrees anymore, but Ryder certainly made her warmer, and not in a freaky way. Never. The way he used to wrap his arms around her made her feel warm, but in a human way. The right way. And she's never going to forget that for as long as she lives, breathes, and loves without him.

But fuck Ryder Castillo. Fuck his cowardliness. Fuck his Hispanic accent and subtle sexiness and dreamy eyes and great taste in… well, everything. If he was the one, then he would still be here, but he's not. Leah's tired of him—and missing him—but that's the only thing she's tired of. She's not "weary," in the least bit, and maybe it's time for her to start believing it.


	6. Celebratory

_**A/N: **__Woah, this story is doing way better than I thought I would. I love all of you—every single one of you._

* * *

**VI**

On her twenty-eighth birthday, or somewhere close to it, Leah celebrates alone.

Well, that's not entirely true; she was dragged to La Push by her brother just a week ago to celebrate both her birthday and her moving (_and_ Embry and Angelina's wedding, _sigh_), but it was worth it since she was given a car of her own. Since she moved to Silverdale, Leah's been bouncing from rental car to Paul's own little deals to Rosalie Hale's and beyond. At the age of almost-twenty-eight, she has her own car—a recent Ford Fusion that must have pooled in all of the reservation's earnings to purchase alone—and she finally feels like a grown woman, even as said Ford Fusion is shipped and on its way to Long Beach, California.

"_6. Don't fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice."_

Leah knew for a long time that she wanted to get the hell out of La Push. Since she was old enough to realize how much she didn't like it, she knew she wanted to escape. Growing up, she always thought Long Beach, Washington was _the place for her_. She's never been there, believe it or not, but she always thought it was just the kind of place. However, upon Googling it, she realized that no, it is not her kind of place. Not at all. Washington is not nearly as grand as California.

Long Beach, Washington has to be the biggest letdown that Leah's ever seen, and that's saying a lot because… well, because she's Leah. Long Beach is literally one of the tiniest places ever, with less area of land than the Quileute reservation and a third the population of Forks. If you take the two smallest places ever and make them smaller, that is Long Beach, Washington.

So, no, that is not Leah's place at all.

Tomorrow (or in almost seven hours, really), Leah will be flying down to Long Beach, California. Now, that is not a letdown in the least bit.

It's the perfect birthday gift: getting to move to the unknown. Everything is ready—everything is so, _so_ ready in the fact that everything is already there in front of her new home nearly on the beach besides herself. She's had help getting the place, and she's not afraid to admit it, since everything in the state of California is expensive as hell. This is hers, though. All hers.

It's eleven-fifty—just ten minutes to her twenty-eighth birthday—and Leah is restless. She's happy. She's nervous. She's downright terrified. (Did you know she's never been on an airplane before? Well, now you do.) She yearns for lazy days on the hot beaches in string bikinis and palm trees, palm trees, palm trees everywhere. She also worries for her family. She can't think of something bad happening, but that doesn't lessen the possibility.

Come to think of it, as Leah pours it up, up, up in a hotel in Port Angeles, she kind of misses her Silverdale apartment. It was cute—it really was, despite the utter loneliness and ugly things that occurred in it. Some things made it beautiful, though; that counts. But this is just the new chapter of her life. She can appreciate it.

Leah doesn't mind being alone, drunk, in her hotel room to celebrate her birthday. If things in the world went a little differently, Emily would be throwing down Bay Breeze cocktails with her right in this given moment. If the world was a little less cruel, the two women would be best friends again, relishing in this fact. Celebrating this fact.

Well, too fucking bad.

Even as she's pretty sure she's breaking some sort of hotel guest rule, Leah blasts music. There's a stereo in the room, though, so they're asking for it, anyway. Leah received a bunch of CDs—handmade bootlegs from Jared, no doubt—for her birthday, and it's all rap. No matter what she likes (or if she knows what she likes), it is rap, and not even the older, good stuff. It's mostly new rap by men, but there's the occasional woman, and that makes Leah really happy. Somewhere down the road past the _Leah, I just want you to know that you're still beautiful_ milestone, a feminist—or a more vocal one, at that—was born. Leah admires a strong female at any chance and lets men know when they're being sexist. Others hate it, but she loves it.

So blasting her empowering female rap and drinking Bay Breeze cocktails (this tremendously fucking thing that has vodka and cranberry juice and lime and _oh, Jesus_, pineapple juice), Leah feels fly—too fly to be put down.

Bam. Eleven fifty-seven. Three minutes until she's twenty-eight. The age in itself isn't a milestone, but this has to be her best birthday yet. She was downright miserable when she turned eighteen and nineteen and twenty and twenty-one and twenty-two and twenty-three and twenty-four and twenty-five; she was numb when she turned twenty-six; she was foolishly in love when she turned twenty-seven; and now she is twenty-eight, about to move to California. It's a celebration indeed. It's a good thing Sue doesn't know where she's staying; she enjoys a nice drink herself, and if she were here right now with her daughter, the alcohol would all be gone.

Yeah, this is much better.

Either because she's too buzzed or possessed, something is humming at the back of her mind and it won't stop. It only gets louder and louder, which urges Leah to get the hotel room's notepad and pen and write it down. She read somewhere that it's always best to write down your strange thoughts so they won't haunt you for some time. So you'll always remember. This isn't a memo, though; it's a drawing.

Letting her fuzzy mind take her wherever, Leah starts drawing this picture. It looks like a little monster, all triangular with one eye and a big smile with sharp teeth. If the teeth weren't so sharp, and if it weren't her ugly drawing, she'd think it's sort of cute.

She wants to give that little monster a name, but she can't decide on one. The names Ellie and Fizz come to mind, and she can admit they're some of her worst ideas in a long time. She seeks safety in Ellie/Fizz, though. She doesn't know why. This early morning, she feels eight instead of twenty years past that, but she's not ashamed or afraid of what she's drawn. It's like a representation of her. She likes it. In fact, she likes it so much that she tapes it into one of her luggage bags after receiving five hours of sleep and a slight hangover. Ellie/Fizz is coming with her.

On the taxi ride to the William R. Fairchild International Airport, Leah doesn't feel the aftermath of drinking too much and being too lonely; she feels celestial.

_Thank God for the demons._


	7. Revivifying

_**A/N: **__Thanks for the favorites, follows, and reviews. And don't worry about Leah—she'll be fine. By the way, this story seems to go on in seven months as opposed to six. It's like I barely noticed it. :p Oh, and the next chapter will be better. I'm sorry if this one sucks._

* * *

**VII**

Leah doesn't miss La Push. She doesn't miss having to share everything, selfishly enough; she doesn't miss being too warm in a too cold place; she doesn't miss the rowdiness of the pack; and truth be told, she doesn't really miss her brother and his constant questions. Leah was actually a bit of an outsider in La Push: a limitless woman in a quiet place. Now she's quite the opposite: a discreet woman in a brassy city. This is the kind of change she can handle, and not only is she handling it, but she's handling it well.

"_7. Music is good for your soul. Rap music will energise you and boost your ego and pop music will cheer you up. Indie music will make you think and emotional songs will make you cry and think about that boy again. It's healthy."_

Leah's life consists of three main things: work, the beach, and caffeine. She's a librarian again (as long as a web developer on the side), she literally lives across the street from the beach, and the nearest Starbucks isn't far, despite living in the Greater Los Angeles area and having to deal with LA traffic (which isn't, actually, an exaggeration in the least bit.) She never expected Long Beach to be bad, but she never expected it to be _just this good._

At least, it's like that on the beach.

Leah had choices in library jobs. There are a lot of public libraries in a lot of neighborhoods in Long Beach, and instead of picking one of those, she picked the main one, on Pacific Avenue. It's a big library—and really fucking beautiful, too, because yes, libraries can be beautiful—and she didn't start out at the reference desk. Over time, she proved herself, though; she can answer just about any question presented sufficiently. Her mother wouldn't be proud (because libraries are "just boring old libraries"), but it doesn't really matter what her mother thinks, anyway.

It's May, and even as it is seasonally inappropriate to be immensely thankful like one would on Thanksgiving, Leah thanks the gods—all of them, no matter what religion—for air-conditioning. _Bless air-conditioning. Bless it all._ Houses in western Washington don't have air-conditioning because it's "unnecessary," but Leah's seen hot days in La Push. She's seen plenty of them. This, though, is _hot._ A new kind of hot.

A great thing about Leah's new job is that when she's not helping somebody, she can listen to music. It's not often that she has this much freedom, but it happens. And by God, it is _lovely._ It's like she never even listened to music before.

Leah's crap excuse for an MP3 player—a beaten-down second-generation iPod classic that she got for thirty bucks—serves as her lifeline on hot days at the library, as well as the beach and Starbucks. It serves as her lifeline, period. It manipulates her mood and makes her think.

The best part about it is that it's filled with what _she_ likes. Bless Jared's generous soul, but he didn't know her. _She_ didn't even know her, but now she has an idea.

Leah's iPod consists of her favorites: classics like Biggie and Tupac (though she prefers the latter); more recent artists like Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks (it's quite a shame that they don't like each other, though, because Leah loves them both equally); the obvious king (not Bieber) and queen (not Madonna) of pop; and some Marina chick who always makes Leah cry over herself that happens to always paired with some Lana chick who makes Leah cry over men. Leah's no hipster who wears flower crowns and listens to bands that nobody knows, but she thinks how much she appreciates music these days is marvelous. It's self-indulgent, and she doesn't mind. Nobody should.

_I should write a book or something_, Leah thinks snidely. _How to Stop Being a Werewolf. _Yeah, that sounds nice. Leah's human now—totally human. It's like she never turned into a giant dog, and she's fine with it. People have always told her to remember who she was, to remember her past because that's who she is, but she knows the truth: that's not who she is. There is nothing to be proud of with being a genetic dead-end. There's nothing to be proud of with turning into an animal and running at such a hot temperature that requires wearing next to nothing (and tearing those clothes apart by accident in the early days) and not being in control of your own mind. There is nothing attractive about being robbed of your womanhood, stuck with an impractical vagina and too many fucking muscles to find feminine. Nobody should have to deal with phasing, and nobody should be stuck with it.

So, yeah, Leah deserves to be a little self-indulgent. She wouldn't be herself if she weren't, right?


	8. Aching

_**A/N: **__And the show goes on… I know this chapter is a bit sporadic. Stick with me and you'll be fine._

* * *

**VIII**

The telephone rings in the middle of the night—two fifteen, actually—and Leah never thought she'd spend her twenty-ninth birthday like this. She has work in less than seven hours; she prefers to not miss much sleep.

Bleary, she picks up the screaming cordless phone, anyway. "Hello?" she asks. _This better be worth my while_, she thinks bitterly.

"Leah?" a high voice asks.

"Who's this?"

"Renesmee."

Leah can't stifle a scoff and eye roll; it just happens. "What the hell do you—?" she begins, only to be interrupted.

"Don't be mad," Renesmee tells her in her annoying, high tone. "I just had a question."

"And you couldn't wait until later?" Leah demands. "Christ, kid, it's my fucking birthday. First, you say stupid shit on my twenty-sixth, and now you're trying to ruin my twenty-ninth?" She's prepared to hang up and go back to sleep, but Nessie interrupts her again, trying to reason.

"Wait, wait, wait!" she says. "It's important."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. I was going to call you at work, but you wouldn't like that. And this seems to be the only time you're home, and—"

"Spit it out, kid."

"I'm not a kid," the kid replies sternly. How old is she? Seventeen, still? Isn't she supposed to look twenty? She's still a kid, anyway.

"Then say what you have to say," Leah prompts.

"I'm getting married to Jacob in May," Renesmee finally informs her. "And I want you to be my maid of honor."

Leah doesn't say a word. She really just wants to go to sleep and forget this is even happening.

"C'mon, Lee," Ness says. "I really, really, really, really, _really_ want you to be in the wedding party. Jake does, too. Seriously. We all miss you, too. And we'll play for the trip and everything."

Leah sighs. "My dress better be pretty," she says, and then punctually hangs up the telephone and goes back to sleep.

"_8. Victim complexes are not attractive. Boys and girls will not date you because you are sad. They are not going to date you and kiss your aching bones and cure you of your dragging depression. Wake up. Take a bath. Do your hair. Be attractive."_

She'd rather not spend her entire day thinking about if she wants to attend the wedding of a spoiled brat and her slave, but Leah does. Oh, she really does. It's a regular Tuesday in November anyway. She may be twenty-nine, but that's nothing special—just one more year of being alone. But she doesn't mind. She's never really minded.

Leah can't believe Jacob's only the second of the pack to be married, so she doesn't. It's been almost two years since Seth's wedding; there had to have been at least two weddings in between. She can imagine Sam and Emily at the reception. As much as the idea makes her want to vomit, she can imagine a little kid running between their legs, all excited. Sam and Emily would try to hold him back, but he would be everyone's favorite person in the world. His parents would pretend to be embarrassed but would really be proud that they created such a child. What a cute little situation… Not. It's actually a good thing that Leah might have missed out on so much; she couldn't take the cheesiness.

But _maid of honor?_ Jesus.

Maybe this is just fate telling her that her time has come. The last wedding she went to, she was nothing but a guest. La Push wants and has given absolutely nothing to her, but Forks is a little different. It's like Leah's been exiled from La Push because she's human again, and Forks is welcoming her as if to say, _Yes, join us, you're not a wolf so you're okay now._ It makes her feel both special and like a traitor at the same time.

She can't bring herself to stop wondering why Renesmee wants _her_, though. How old is Claire now? Thirteen? That's not too young; Leah bets she's a little mature enough to be a maid of honor. Maybe Leah's only Renesmee's last resort because all her other candidates are pregnant and would look funny in the wedding pictures. God, that'd be a trip. Leah—at her lovely, homey reference desk in the library on Pacific Avenue—laughs to herself.

"Excuse me?"

She looks up—it's like she never even knew there was a customer standing before her.

"Sorry," she quickly says. "How can I help you, sir?"

In all honesty, he doesn't look like he needs any help. _Ooft, not at all._ He looks like he knows everything, just by the way he looks at her, and that's saying something, coming from Leah, who's been reflecting men for over a year. She never thought she'd be attracted to the sun-kissed, blond-haired California boys, but this one's neither blond nor sun-kissed. With a naturally olive tone and dark brown—not black—curls, this man isn't just hot; he is beautiful. His fashion sense is a little off, with those khaki pants and black t-shirt, but that can be fixed over time.

"Well, I've been trying to get your attention for minutes now," he says, annoyed. "I guess I'll just have to ask someone more available."

Who is this guy trying to mess with? "Uh," Leah says, "I'm available now. How can I help you?"

"With such a long wait, I guess I forgot my question," he replies. He doesn't look like a mean guy; it's a shame he's acting like one.

"Would you like me to help you remember?" she offers.

"No, thank you."

Leah narrows her eyes at him. "Then what the fuck are still standing here for?" she jabs. "Go get help from someone else if I'm such a shit employee."

"Dropping an F-bomb on the customer," he says, incredulous. "That's amazing. How would your boss like that?"

"My boss actually wouldn't mind," Leah informs him.

"And why's that?"

"He kicks out assholes before anything. We get a lot of them, and I guess you're just part of the crowd."

The man just shakes his head and turns around. As he walks away, Leah knows she doesn't have her bite anymore; she just feels _bad._

_Come back, beautiful_, she mentally calls to him. _I'm sorry. You're beautiful. I'm sorry. I'm PMSing. It's a twenty-nine-year-old thing. I used to be a werewolf. Come back and love me. Guys like girls with issues, right? Beautiful, come back. Talk to me and I'll be nice and you can be my date to a joke of a wedding that I have to be in. Let me imprint on you, oh my fucking God. Please. Please, beautiful. PLEASE. Let me love you._

Mr. Beautiful doesn't come back.

Leah pretends to be sick and takes the rest of the day off. She indulges in Starbucks, the beach, and calling Renesmee to discuss the role of the maid of honor. Yeah, Leah is going to go. She sort of misses some people, and Renesmee sounded desperate. She's allowed to be a little nice. It'll get her into heaven, maybe.

The second Leah calls, Nessie answers the phone, squealing, "You're gonna do it!?"

Leah laughs. "I'm gonna do it," she confirms. "I don't need a date, do I?"

"Not if you don't want to bring one," Nessie replies easily.

"Good, 'cause I don't have one."

Nessie laughs awkwardly in response, and it just occurs to Leah that this girl has never been alone once in her entire life. She's had the easiest life that Leah's ever heard of, and that only dulls her already dim excitement to take part in her wedding next May.

"So apparently everyone misses me?" Leah asks curiously. She never would've thought.

"Mm-hmm," Nessie replies. "Every single time they get together they all go, 'Where's Leah?' It's cute. And, oh my God, you should see everyone. Especially your nephew. He is just the cutest—"

"Wait, what?" Leah asks.

"What?"

"I have a nephew?"

"_Lord_, you are late."


	9. Clarifying

_**A/N: **__CHRIST, YOU GUYS ARE LIKE FOUR STEPS AHEAD OF ME. I LOVE IT BUT OH MY GOD. This is easily the greatest, most insightful audience I've ever had. I've always had people review strictly like, "Good chapter. Update soon." I appreciate it, but actual thoughts on the chapter are much better, you know? So, thank you all again. But Leah is not that cruel in this story. Sorry, but she isn't. Don't we all get better at hiding our cruelness with age? But like I said, stick with me and things will be just fine. And for my Americans, happy Independence Day. Go, 'Murica. *wraps self in American flag a la Lana Del Rey* And for the record, this might be one of my favorite chapters yet, though it is much longer than the others. Enjoy._

* * *

**IX**

Someone once told Leah that she puts the "pro" in _procrastination_, and back then, she just laughed it off. She laughed and laughed because it was hilarious and totally untrue, but now that she's in a moment of blatant, outright procrastination, the _last_ thing she wants is to laugh. Laughing won't get a maid of honor speech down on the piece of paper in her hands.

Leah is screwed.

Really, honestly, undoubtedly screwed.

"_9. Sadness is not poetic. Depression is not beautiful. Laying in bed all day and eating too much is lazy and disgusting and it is not tragic or pretty. Get up. Go outside. Let the sun warm your bones. Live."_

It's Wedding Day. D-Day. Renesmee-Gets-the-D Day? (Leah should be arrested for that one.) It's a warm day in the middle of May, and Jacob Black and Renesmee Cullen are tying the knot. Leah is the maid of honor, and Sam—surprisingly enough—is the best man. Leah heard through the grapevine (meaning Rosalie) that Emily was originally going to be the maid of honor, but she's so pregnant she looks like she's going to explode, which would look weird in the pictures, therefore making Leah fill the spot. It's absolutely stupid and makes Leah want to bail, but she already committed to it. _Sigh._

At least that was one of the only things Renesmee lied about. The truths make Leah a little happier to be here, like the fact that she does have an adorable one-year-old nephew named Elijah. Surprisingly, he wasn't already a fetus when Alaska and Seth got married. Another truth makes Leah happier, too, like the fact that everyone really did miss her, for instance. She's not _Leah the awkward aunt_ or _Leah the total burden_. She's just Leah, at least, and at most, she's _Leah the cool girl who lives where the sun always shines and is totally in control of her life_. That's nice. She was actually missed. It makes her feel important. Maybe she would have stayed and lived an averagely mediocre life if they didn't try to crush her beforehand.

So because she's such a star for being back for most likely the biggest, nicest, prettiest, most expensive wedding of anyone of the pack, she deserves to lie in bed and hate her guts—just one time. The entire time she's been here—which is three weeks—she's been a trooper. She's gotten up, gotten ready, dealt with the bridesmaid fittings and petty drama (even though it's the exact same as Seth's party, minus Emily and her gigantic stomach), and participated in all the little wedding things that Renesmee's seen on TV.

In fact, it's like Nessie's mimicking the television, when Leah thinks about it. Renesmee is not a normal girl, and she's not having a normal wedding. She looks seventeen, and Jacob doesn't look much older. She couldn't have her cake and eat it, too (literally, as in, she didn't really have a say in the wedding cake because she's not going to be eating much of it). She couldn't go out with her bridesmaids for her bachelorette party because she's underage and not even human enough to get drunk and enjoy herself. She couldn't even have a stripper at her bachelorette party, as cliché as that sounds. Nessie accentuated the little details in her wedding planning in exchange for the memorable ones, which is honestly sad. If Leah had a little more room in her heart for the spoiled girl, she would feel a little sadder for her. She's always reminded, though, that even if Nessie has an unhappy time planning her wedding, it will always be better than anyone else's. If Leah ever gets married, she will never have a wedding as great as Nessie's because her husband will never love her as much as Nessie's loves her, her wedding will never cost as much as Nessie's, and her dad will never be able to walk her down the aisle. In the future, Nessie can renew her vows and get married thousands and thousands of times, over and over, year after year, and her father will always be able to be in that. Leah doesn't even have a father to walk her down the aisle once, and that only makes her feel worse.

So, yeah, maybe Leah deserves to stay in bed until an hour or so before the wedding.

But, _noooooo._

Leah has a hangover the size of fucking Saturn, because selfishly enough, the entire wedding party went out for drinks last night sans Jacob and Renesmee. The pack may not be aging much anymore, but they certainly aged enough to look somewhat twenty-one and over, and they made sure to get their IDs the days they turned eighteen. Then there's Renesmee—that poor, spoiled little girl—who didn't go. In all honesty, she could have; anyone could have hooked her up with a fake ID. However, she decided to stay, and Leah knows for a fact that Jacob _really_ wanted to go, but he didn't. He stayed with his princess. He stayed and played checkers with the chick, and Leah got drunk with her ex-boyfriend, who surprisingly didn't have a problem with leaving his dangerously pregnant fiancée (yeah, they're _still_ not married yet) home alone. That's just how this crazy world goes, Leah supposes.

The entire wedding party (minus the couple actually getting married) probably feels like shit, but Leah probably feels worse than anyone, but she has the most responsibilities. No one else has to write a speech, for one thing.

Leah did some Googling, and maid of honor speeches are supposed to be _personal._ That would be easy if Leah was writing for Emily or something, but instead, she's Nessie's maid of honor, which is funny considering how the bride and maid of honor tend to be best friends. Not in this case. Nessie just got the person who's not pregnant.

In her old living room at her house in La Push, Leah contemplates downing a bottle of champagne. It won't make her hangover any better, but she's gonna need to be drunk to write this joke of a speech. However, there's no alcohol in the house—she already checked. After rubbing the crust from her eyes, she sets her pen down to her piece of paper and writes. It's one thing writing the speech, and it's going to be another trying to remember it. She might just have to pull it out of her bra and read it aloud at the reception. Oh, well…

_I remember when Renesmee was just born. It was a funny night, I was a moody teenager in menopause, and it was a pretty big deal for everyone. Like, a whole bunch of shit happened before, during, and after her birth. We need a young adult book and movie franchise inspired by what happened, I swear. That night, her mom, like, died. I think at least half of the people in this room remember that. So, anyway, I lost a friend that night. No, not Bella—I mean Jacob. We were getting to not hating each other, but then he pulled this sicko move and imprinted on Bella's baby, like, right after she came out of Bella's shredded vagina. I guess they call you a showstopper for a reason, right, Ness? [insert awkward chuckle] So, yeah, I lost a friend, but Jacob met his lifelong partner for, like… life. Crazy shit. The day Bella found out Jake imprinted, she beat the shit out of my brother, and I almost beat the shit out of her. [insert side-eye at Bella] I remember that. Crazy shit, though. Jake waited for Nessie to grow up, and here she is, all grown up. I say she's a pretty okay girl. Bella, Edward… you two could've done much worse. Now, Renesmee, have fun being legal and not jailbait and everything. And remember: get busy, but not too busy! Wouldn't want to end up like your mother! [drops microphone]_

Leah drops her pen.

Yeah, no.

The telephone suddenly rings, making Leah jump, and her mother yells at her to answer it. Ah, it's like she never even left her loud, honest, nearly-impossible giver of life.

Leah makes a beeline to the wall phone in the kitchen (the one with the mile-long cord, _Napoleon Dynamite_-style) and takes it off the hook, pressing her ear to the cool receiver. "Hello?"

"Hey, Leah, it's Rachel."

Leah already knows it's Rachel, just by the voice. Well, it's either her or Rebecca (who actually is in town for her brother's wedding, but not in the bridal party), and Rebecca doesn't have her number.

"What's up?" Leah replies.

"We need you down at the Cullens' place soon. We—"

"Rachel, the wedding doesn't start until five," Leah reminds her. "It is seven o'clock in the morning."

"I _know_," Rachel sounds, annoyed with Leah's bluntness. "Princess just wants us to hang around, though, and make sure we all get prepared. She's being a bigger control freak than Alice, and she's also a bit of a wreck."

Leah groans. "Do I _have_ to?"

"No," she replies, "but you should."

"Then I'll get there fashionably late," Leah decides. Then she remembers the sum of money that Renesmee left her "for emergencies." She has an idea—not a good one, but an idea. "Where's the nearest Starbucks?" she inquires.

Rachel laughs. "You crazy? You'd have to drive an hour-and-a -half to get just a cup of coffee."

"Well, shit," Leah mutters. "I was gonna be nice and get all of you guys coffee. I hope you like the cheap kind from Forks. See you in a bit."

"See ya."

Leah hangs up the telephone and puts on a pair of jeans. Good deeds look good on everybody.

_*.*.*_

Leah arrives at the Cullen residence fashionably late, but with eighteen cups of coffee. Rachel runs out of the house to help Leah with taking the sources of everyone's energy out of the car, and she informs Leah that everyone in the house is a mess. Michelle is annoyed with Alaska for bringing her kid, Sam is worried about Emily—who is nearly due to give birth, by the way—and feels bad for leaving her side, Jared's hangover is absolutely catastrophic, Brady isn't getting along with Collin, etc., etc., etc. And on top of all of that, Renesmee is breaking down upstairs. She hasn't even touched her wedding dress yet today, and just looking at the bag made her cry.

After contemplating which problem she should at least attempt to solve, Leah heads upstairs to wherever Renesmee is—Alice's room, she thinks—after setting down many cups of coffee onto a table. Rachel doesn't follow.

The door to Alice's bedroom is already open, and Leah walks in to find Bella, Alice, and Esme Cullen, along with Rosalie Hale, standing around Renesmee, who merely stares at the mirror and cries. Leah hears murmurs of pity and weak support, and she wants to throw up. She doesn't mind vampires all that much now, but just being around them is… _cold_. However, she approaches the group and they all turn to her. Rosalie, Esme, and Alice smile politely; Bella is indifferent. Well. Surprisingly, Renesmee gets up from her seat and walks to Leah to greet her with a hug. The short ginger grips Leah tightly.

"I'm so glad you're here," Renesmee says, her voice muffled by Leah's boobs.

"What's going on?" Leah asks nobody in particular.

"Renesmee's just a little nervous," Alice answers.

"She'll be fine," Rosalie adds.

"Just a little wedding jitters," Esme informs.

"You'll be okay, sweetie," Bella tells her daughter. "It's just another day."

Renesmee's face leaves Leah's body, and she wipes the endless tears on her face. "But—b-but," she stammers. "I don't know if-if-if… if I really want this, M-mom."

Leah wants to tell her that she never really had a choice, but it's not really her place to speak now. Bella just sighs and exits the room. "Let me know when you're ready, then," she heartlessly calls over her shoulder. "I'm going to speak with Jacob."

Rosalie slams the door as soon as Bella leaves and groans, frustrated. "She is _always_ around Jacob now," she says. "It's like she loves _him_ more than her own husband."

"I'll say," Alice agrees.

"Don't say that," Esme tells them. "Bella is still very much in love with Edward. We all know that."

"Wait, what's going on?" Leah asks. "Did I miss something?"

The three-and-a-half-vampires stare back at Leah, wordless. The cat's out of the bag now, but they're too protective of their reputations—and Bella's, too—to admit it.

Renesmee just plops back into the chair in front of the mirror and wipes tissues against her pale skin. "Nothing," she says. "Jacob loves me and I'm marrying him." Alice nods to confirm the matter.

Leah slowly backs away to the door. "Uh, alright," she says. "Ness, I brought you a coffee. It's downstairs if you want it."

The teenager turns to Leah and gives a small smile, even though Leah knows for a fact that she won't consume the coffee. "Thank you," Nessie says politely.

"No problem."

_Oh, it's no problem at all._

_*.*.*_

With the help of the bridesmaids, Leah finishes a respectable maid of honor speech, though she's sure she's going to forget it and start spilling out whatever shit comes from her mouth.

Everyone gets ready for the wedding, and Leah can admit that this is, in fact, a good-looking group of sixteen bridesmaids and groomsmen, and they're not even vampires. Leah wonders why Alice and Rosalie aren't bridesmaids, but then she realizes that Nessie might have thought they would stand out against the tan group that is her Quileute friends, which is pretty petty in itself. It'd be a valid idea, though—the tan group looks good with no terrifyingly pregnant women in sight.

Even though it's not her job, the mother of the bride lurks around, making sure everyone in the wedding part looks good, and they do. She fiddles with Jacob's tie for a while, causing both of them to laugh like lovers, and everyone else looks away awkwardly—they must be used to it. It's all just another reason why it's a good thing for Leah to live in Long Beach.

The backyard ceremony eventually begins, and Leah and Sam have to wait for seven more couples to walk down the aisle before them. With her arm linked to Sam's, Leah feels a little vengeful. Even though Sam's not hers—and even though she is one-hundred-and-five-percent over him—she can pretend he is. They don't even look bad together. A smirk is upon her face the entire time she walks down the aisle with him, and she doesn't feel bad.

The ceremony is rather quick, and Leah realizes that the wedding party isn't just attractive—so are the guests. The same group of Alaskan vampires that Leah met years ago—like, ten years ago, while preparing for a confrontation with the Volturi—is in the audience, and it's like they're even more gorgeous than last time. Leah knows that it's okay to have a conversation this time, though; they're nothing to be afraid of.

The reception is outside, as well (and a bit of a copycat of Bella and Edward's wedding, too, since Leah's seen some pictures), and it's lovely. Leah gets a dance with just about every guy in the party—even Sam. They have a civil conversation, and she can't bring herself to hate him anymore or even see why she ever did. Leah also dances with her nephew, which is one of the best moments of her life. It's so great, she asks her mom to send her pictures. Babies are usually icky, but Elijah… Elijah is perfect. She doesn't mind being the cool aunt.

At some point, Jacob asks Leah for a dance, and she doesn't say no. He's the last person she dances with out of the pack, and he thanks her.

"What for?" she asks.

"For being here for Renesmee."

"Oh, it's no problem," she replies. "I did it for you, too, though."

Jacob shrugs. "Yeah, but I just wanted Ness to be happy."

Leah rolls her eyes. "She's always been happy."

"She doesn't really have any friends," Jacob tells her. "I know it's sad."

"Sadder than sad," Leah agrees.

"You know, Lee," Jake says, "she's never been alone, but she's always been lonely."

"Well, that's something."

"I know. But thank you. She's really happy that you're here for her; she was scared you'd say no or bite her head off or something."

Leah laughs. "I don't bite heads off when I'm mad anymore," she informs him lightly.

His eyes widen dramatically. "You don't get mad anymore?" he asks. "_Leah Clearwater doesn't get mad anymore?_"

She laughs again. "I never said I don't get mad," she replies. "I just learned how to plot my revenges cleverly over time." She smiles slyly, which causes him to laugh, which causes her to laugh some more. She likes how they can laugh together now.

Yeah, Leah missed her pack—she missed them a lot, but not enough to stay.

_*.*.*_

Leah forgets the speech she and the rest of the bridesmaids came up with, so she spouts out a speech from the heart. It's a little tipsy, but it's not as bad as her initial speech. It even brings Nessie to tears, but that's not a hard thing to do; she's as sensitive as her mother.

And speaking of Nessie's mother, as Leah sits and chats with her own mother, she sees Bella and Jacob dancing. It's not embarrassing in the least bit—just a little inappropriate how close they are, and how Jake's hands rub her hips, and how they smile at each other like they're already married and are attending someone else's wedding. It's funny how nobody says anything, and it's hilarious how Nessie doesn't notice.

_Whatever will be, will be, _Leah decides. _It's not like Bella can break the imprint._

Her attention goes back to Sue, and she immediately notices a ring upon the correct finger on her mother's left hand. Leah takes her hand, shocked and surprised. "Mom, what is this?" she asks seriously.

Sue lifts her hand up to her own face and smiles. "I'm a married woman again."

Before Leah can start screaming, Sue shushes her. "Yes, I'm married to Charlie, and everyone already knows," she tells her daughter. "No need to make a big deal out of it."

"But _I_ wasn't invited?" Leah asks hysterically.

"Nobody was!" Sue replies. Then she laughs. "We eloped." And she continues to laugh and laugh and laugh because it's just the best thing in the world.

"Yeah, very funny, Mom," Leah says.

Sue just hugs her. "Oh, baby, I'm just crazy. Never elope, though, okay? I don't want you to."

"There's a story about a pot and a kettle," Leah begins.

"Make your mama happy," Sue tells her. "Alright? Don't elope."

"Well, I'm happy for you," Leah admits, pulling out of the hug. "I just wished that you called or something. How long have you been married?"

"Honey, I've only been married a month! Since the week before you flew up here!"

"W-o-w."

Sue laughs again, and is interrupted by a man appearing before him. It's Charlie Swan, Leah's new stepfather.

"You broke the news?" he asks Sue with a smile on his face.

Sue nods, her grin wide.

Leah smiles at Charlie. "Congrats, guys," she tells them. "Congrats… Dad." She has a little bit of a hard time saying the last word.

Charlie's sense of pride seems to hit the sky, and he asks Sue for a dance. She complies, and Leah is left alone at the table until she gets a tap on the shoulder. To her huge surprise, it's Emmett Cullen. He asks her to dance, and she takes his hand and follows him. Leah's not a freak of nature, after all. If anything, she's pretty hot. With her nicely toned body and wavy, dark brown hair down to her bust, she's not excruciatingly masculine anymore. Leah Felicity Clearwater is attractive. If only this confidence will follow her back to her new home, Long Beach.

And it just might.


	10. Inspiring

_**A/N: **__This isn't a hopeless story, I promise. The ending isn't sad. Seriously, I am not trying to bum you guys—or myself, for that matter—out. And like I said, believe in me and things will be just fine. Enjoy._

* * *

**X**

On Leah's thirtieth birthday, just as she's finished ordering a dinner for one on that warm, rainy Saturday night, there's a knock on her front door. Confused as to who it might be, she answers it, anyway, and there is Wes-Not-Wesley Beaufort standing in front of her eyes, smiling in the light of the little bulb above her porch. He holds a circular object in his hands, and the top is a clear plastic, covered in raindrops. He runs a hand across it, and it turns out that it's a birthday cake. In swirly lavender icing, _Happy Birthday, Leah_ is now visible, and Wes-Not-Wesley smiles up at Leah.

"I was in the area," he begins, "and I want to wish you a happy birthday. Would you like company tonight?"

"_10. If it makes you happy, buy twenty of it. Dedicate your life to it. Print it on tv shirts and collect things and draw art of it. Do not care what people think. They are the unhappy people you need to avoid. The abuse they will hurl at you is painless compared to how sad they are. Pity them. Remain happy."_

Upon returning to Long Beach since Renesmee Cullen's—no, Renesmee Black's—wedding, Leah's life has been the same, yet better. She returns to her old job with a sense of pride, and things have been fine without her. It's like she never even left her lovely reference desk. May's been a good month.

Her first day of being back is a good day—in fact, no, it's a great day. She doesn't get shit from anybody and she's so helpful and she deserves a Nobel Peace Prize or something for that shit. Leah's a star at her job again, and she isn't tempted to cuss out another customer (is that what they're called? They're not buying anything, though) again.

But that's just the daytime.

The evening, however, is different.

Leah is literally minutes from clocking out when a man—yes, the same beautiful man who was completely irrational and rude to her just on her twenty-ninth birthday—approaches her desk. He's just as beautiful, if not more, but Leah knows how he is. He may be good-looking, but he is most definitely _not_ a work of art. He's impatient. He's needy. He's downright obnoxious.

After she's just about had it just by looking at him, Leah finally asks, "How can I help you, sir?"

"Can I have a surf book?"

"A surf book?"

"A surf book."

"Would you like—"

"You know," he goes on, "with the boards and the waves and stuff? And swimming? A surf book?"

"I know what surfing is, sir," she says, still keeping her cool because she's always wanted to try surfing so maybe this guy isn't worthless, after all. "But what kind of book would you like? Fiction? Non-fiction? Children's? Sir, there are _plenty_ of surf books available."

He flashes a small smile. "I really just want a book on surfing," he says. "Hook me up with as many as you want. I need them." This man is such a tease; it makes Leah want to laugh. He just wanted an excuse to talk to her, and now he's got it.

Rolling her eyes, she pulls up the library catalogue and types in _surfing._ This guy's gonna take forever and she's going to be starving by the time she finally gets home. "You're not very bright," she tells him, staring at the computer monitor.

"You're a bit of a smart-ass," he points out, smirking.

Her eyes meet his, and she catches his smirk. _God_, it is attractive. She may be a smart-ass, but this smart-ass is attracted. "Meet me in the parking lot in five minutes?" she asks.

"Certainly."

And in five minutes, Leah and the man are in her Ford Fusion in the back of the parking lot of the Long Beach Public Library on Pacific Avenue. They're laughing over nothing in particular, and Leah sees nothing wrong with it. He's not a bad guy; just a clown. She kind of likes that.

"I don't blame you for hating your job," he tells Leah. "Especially when you have to deal with assholes like me."

"I don't hate my job," she replies. "I just hate assholes."

"Then why am I—the biggest asshole in the universe—sitting in your car?"

_Because I'm lonely and horny._ "Why did you even approach me again?"

He turns to Leah, her face only half-lit by the moon, and exhales. "Because I think you are absolutely exquisite."

Leah doesn't even have to think about it. "You are obviously intoxicated."

"Yet you're the one who invited me back to your car?" he wonders.

She pauses. "Touché," she says. "So, Mr. Charm, what's your name? I bet it's as exquisite as your word choice."

He has a nice smile, and he shows it off well—not obnoxiously or forcefully, either. Just beautifully. Little lines form around his bluish-green eyes, making him look a little older even though he can't be much older than Leah. "Wes-Not-Wesley Beaufort," he introduces himself.

"Excuse me?" Leah asks, confused.

"Wesley Beaufort," he repeats, "but I go by Wes."

"Wesley Beaufort," she echoes. "That's pretty preppy. Doesn't sound like the name of a guy looking for surf books."

"Yeah, I actually don't need surf books," he replies, his face honest—it's cute how he looks a little embarrassed, too.

Leah smiles. "I know you just wanted to talk to me because I'm so"—she bats her eyelashes—"exquisite. But you didn't have to pretend to be interested in surfing. If anything, _I_ need surf books. I was thinking of taking up surfing myself."

"Really?" he asks, his eyebrows raised.

"Really."

"I don't need surf books because… well, because I'm a surf instructor."

"Oh, really?"

"Really."

"When do you do lessons?" she wonders.

"You really wanna mix work and pleasure?" he challenges.

_I'm pleasure? _"We're already there on my end," she reminds him.

Wesley—no, Wes—takes out his wallet without consideration and hands her a card with information on it. She takes a look at it. "Beaufort Surfing?" she asks. "Your family owns the place?"

"Yes and no," he replies. "My cousins own the surf place. My 'rents are entrepreneurs, but they don't take surfing seriously."

"That's a shame," Leah says pitifully.

"No, it's just how they were brought up," he says, "and how they tried to bring me up. They actually think I'm in law school—I really just went for a week and left. Now I live here in Long Beach around my cousins. At least _they_ don't expect that much of me." He makes a face.

"Wow."

Wes nods. "Yeah. And what would be your name?" It's a smooth transition from his little sob story to her. He's good.

"Leah," she says. "Leah Clearwater."

"Clearwater," he repeats, amazed just at the name. "Native, right?"

She nods. "Yup. I mean, if it wasn't obvious enough in my face."

He chuckles. Any other guy would feel like they committed a crime. Wes is different. "Sorry," he says. "Where are you from, Leah Clearwater? What brings you here?"

"How do you know I'm not from around here already?"

"You said you wanted to take up surfing," he replies. "Anyone who lives here and wants to surf has already tried."

There's a big difference between Wes and Ryder: Wes actually wants to know about her. Leah never told Ryder about her life in La Push because he never asked and he never once seemed interested. He was only concerned with who she was at the moment, and not who she used to be. Leah used to not appreciate who she used to be until she realized that she does. She really, truly does. She just doesn't want to return to it. Wes cares, though; Wes is interested. Wes has time for Leah—all of her.

Hesitant still, she makes a face. "It's kind of a long story."

Wes' hands motion to the area around them. It's a motionless, tranquil evening, and the sun is just about to set. It's quite a shame that they're in a car as opposed to on the beach or something. It's really a lovely setting, anyway, though, even if Leah doesn't want to agree with this in the presence of a complete stranger who might just be insane if he's completely enthralled by her already.

"The night is ours," Wes states.

And so it is.

_*.*.*_

The next months leading up to Leah's birthday consist of mostly the same activities, only they're woven with _Wes, Wes, Wes_ in every stitch. She accepts the fact that she can't imprint on him and goes with it. Every time she's around him, that craving feeling for crazy Quileute magic goes away because, hey, normal love is okay, too.

Another difference between Wes and Ryder is that Wes doesn't pretend to be something he's not until a moment comes where he's broken. Up until Ryder's mother died, he was just another Leah, but on steroids. He got her jokes—only to top them with his own. He got her sarcasm—only to out-snark her in a contest. Ryder was just a little bit too much like her up until he proved how much of a coward he was, and probably still is. Yes, it's sad that his mother died, but he didn't give an attempt to stay strong, and even as he was weak, he never looked to Leah for comfort. She wasn't important to him.

But Wes—Wes is different.

If anything, he's not much like Leah at all. The first thing that brings them together is surfing. She really is interested, and he really is an instructor. He basically lives in the water, and just because he likes Leah doesn't mean he's not going to yell at her to come back to shore and go out and try again. Wes isn't much like Leah, but the one gem they have in common is that they're tough-love kind of people. They push each other; he pushes her to be a better surfer, and she pushes him to be more patient. To be more mellow. The ex-wolf is teaching the surfer how to be calm… It's funny. Leah has also taken an interest in photography, which soothes her even more. The limitations are only so impossible with a good camera in your hands. Wes is her favorite model and she's not afraid to admit it.

On a calmer day at surf lessons—a day so calm she doesn't have to go out and choke on saltwater and leave the water looking like a drowned cat—Leah works up the nerves to tell Wes that she used to be a wolf. It shouldn't be hard since it's not like she can phase anymore, but the nagging questions in the back of her mind are present. _What if he gets freaked out? What if he doesn't even believe me!? He'll probably think I'm lying. I shouldn't tell him… but I should. I want him to know me. I want him to know all of me._

So, sitting on the surfboard in the ocean with Wes on that calm Saturday afternoon in October, Leah starts with, "Would you be freaked if I tell you something?"

"Nah," Wes replies. "Go ahead."

"I used to be a werewolf."

His face is unaffected. "So, do you wanna get tacos or burgers for dinner tonight?"

_What the actual fuck. _"I—you—why," she stammers. "I just told you… that, and you ask about what I want for dinner?"

Wes laughs and runs a hand through his wet, dark brown curls. "That's sick," he says.

"Do I need to explain it, or…?" She trails off, deeply confused by this man. His favorite phrase is _shaka_—or "hang loose"—and it's totally obvious now. The guy can't be any looser.

He does think about it, though, and finally decides, "Yeah, I'd rather you explain."

Leah's not completely normal, as much as she may seem that way now, but maybe things will be at a sort of median if she tells him, and so she does. Over amateur, "totally not Mexican" (as Wes puts it) tacos that night, she tells him. After he drives her home, he promises he'll call her the next day, and she shouldn't be surprised, but he keeps his promise. It's then that she realizes it's hard to believe a nice guy if you've never had the experience of being with one.

_*.*.*_

Wes-Not-Wesley Beaufort is a patient man. Leah can't stop herself from comparing him to Ryder, but they're polar opposites. Ryder was going to move in with her after nearly no time at all; Wes hasn't even asked about living together, but he's brought it up, Leah said not now, and he accepted it. He's not boring, though; he's always full of surprises, in and out of the water.

It's November sixteenth again, and Leah is turning thirty years old.

She's always been aware of her birthday milestones: one, ten, thirteen, eighteen, twenty-one, and one hundred. She never considered thirty, though. At least, not for a long time. Thirty is the age of being "flirty and thriving," but Leah's felt this way before. The feelings of being flirty and thriving have lasted for a while; they're not just appearing now.

Leah's first birthday was on a Wednesday, so she had two parties. Her mom always said she was spoiled in that way, but Leah wouldn't call it "spoiled." Just important. When Leah turned ten, she went to Chuck E. Cheese's, because she was a kid who wanted to be in a place where she could be a kid. When she turned thirteen, she got into a PG-13 movie for the very first time. When she turned eighteen, she was told by Jared that it would probably be her last birthday before she phased—before she stopped physically aging. That wasn't a very happy birthday. When she turned twenty-one, she was less alarmed and more miserable. Definitely more miserable. If Leah had been going down the same path, she would have been convinced her hundredth birthday is going to be wretched, too.

She doesn't have to think like that anymore, though.

Her thirtieth birthday isn't at all depressing, but it's not particularly exciting, either. Wes is out of town—he's been in Hawaii for two weeks now, for a short surf festival. He's supposed to be back tomorrow or the day after, but she's not very sure. (Leah secretly wonders if he met Rebecca Black's husband in Hawaii, since he's a competitive surfer, too, but it's probably not that important, anyway.) Leah misses him, though. She can't say she's in love, but she can't say she can be without Wes, either. He's special. He's significant. He's also gone. She should have gone with him; she could be taking hundreds of pictures at this given moment.

Leah and Wes were on a good note when he left for Hawaii. She didn't get mad for giving so little notice that he was going to leave for over two weeks, and he didn't get nervous that she would possibly not miss him. They knew how the other would feel, but Leah never thought she would feel this incomplete without him. _Huh, maybe I really am in love._

Solitude never hurt her, though. It made her feel alone, but never lonely—at least not anymore. The November rain (which is surprisingly warm, since you learn new things everyday) is relaxing background noise as she indulges in a hot cup of tea and a new novel. Someone once called her a "hipster" for constantly doing this, but so be it. Leah Clearwater is a fucking hipster if it means being chill and not turning into a furry animal just by getting angry.

Leah tucks her bookmark back into her novel and decides to order dinner. She doesn't want to leave the house; she's thinking Chinese. Just after ordering a serving of Kung Pao chicken with noodles, she hears a knock on the door. It's too late for trick-or-treaters and too early for Christmas carolers, so this is a bit of a surprise. Who could be here to visit? Leah never invited anyone, and if it's anyone from Forks or La Push, she's gonna be pissed they didn't call first.

She swings open the door, and much to her surprise, there is Wes-Not-Wesley Beaufort, her surf instructor and favorite model (and yeah, probably her boyfriend, too) standing there in front of her for the first time in weeks. The dim light of the bulb above her porch brings light to his face, and he's sopping wet, not like he just went swimming, but like he ran through the rain for her. And knowing him, he most likely did.

In his hands is a round plastic container that is covered in raindrops. Wordlessly, he wipes his palm across the top, and Leah peers into the box, able to see inside of it. It's a birthday cake that reads, _Happy Birthday, Leah_ in lavender frosting. The birthday girl is about to cry, and it's not over the fact that she got her cake and can eat it, too.

She looks up at Wes, and before she can say anything, he starts speaking in a smooth manner, like he's planned this all along, and he just might have. "I was in the area," he says, "and I want to wish you a happy birthday. Would you like company tonight?"

Leah doesn't have to respond with words simply because words are unpredictable and limited. She pulls Wes into the house, the cake soon forgotten and left on the porch like a naughty pet. With her hands in his damp curls, she puts her lips to his for the first time and knows for a fact that not only is he good-looking, but he is a work of art as well.


	11. Pitying

_**A/N: **__I wanna tell you guys a secret: I've always wanted to write a story using the names Ryder and Wes. I think they're cool names. My wish has come true. And I was afraid you guys wouldn't really like Wes, haha. Thanks for being supportive and sticking with me. Only three chapters left!_

* * *

**XI**

Leah doesn't mind saying she's in love with Wes Beaufort. Love shouldn't be difficult, and finally, it isn't for her. She once heard somewhere that it's not fully important to fall in love, but to rise with it. That makes a lot of sense. It's the first thing that really makes sense to her in years.

There are plenty of things that Wes is—exciting, fearless, and easygoing at the same time, to begin with—and there are plenty of things that he isn't—pushy, tenacious, or lazy—and not only is Leah ready to be with him, but she is ready to rise with him. It's like she doesn't have to think about it.

So on a so-fucking-hot-you-might-as-well-die afternoon in June, on her lunch break at Starbucks, Leah calls her mother. She clearly remembers the harsh words she was told, back on Seth's wedding day _("Silly girl. Won't you ever figure out how to not be lonely?"_—stings like a bitch), and she's ready to tell her. She's not lonely anymore. Bam.

"_11. You are allowed to be angry. But the world is not working against you. The flowers do not bloom for you and when your mother shouts ask her if she is okay instead of thinking she hates you. She never will. The world walks beside you and is silent. It does not trip you up or carry you."_

There are people who are lonely, people who are destined to be lonely, people who are forced to be lonely, and people who choose to be lonely. Leah has been all four of those people and zero of them at the same time.

Loneliness is a funny, crazy thing; people who want to be alone tend to crave solitude, but what _is_ solitude? Has Leah ever really been alone? Surely, she has been before—alone in her bedroom for her first suicide attempt and alone in the woods for her second—but alone in the world? Maybe not. She's learned that her loneliness doesn't come out of hating everybody; it comes out of being disappointed with those who come her way. Her being depressed wasn't a werewolf thing, for the most part; it was half-and-half, and one of those halves was a Leah thing. At thirty-and-a-half-years-old (_Christ, she's aged_) she can't remember who she really was before her life went to shit, and she doesn't want to, but at the same time, she really, _really_ wants to. She has to. What's the point in finally understanding yourself so well when you haven't taken _all_ of you into consideration?

Wes has, though. Wes knows and accepts all of Leah. He hasn't shied away from her or even expressed fear. That's what she loves the most about him. He _knows_ her, and he's not ashamed of the fact.

Leah's figured out how to not be lonely, and it all just takes a couple things: a change and some time.

As she excitedly dials her house phone in La Push with her cell phone, Leah has a thousand things to tell Sue. She's ecstatic just thinking about it—she almost wishes she were in La Push now to see her face. She would be practically singing to her mom, _"Guess what? I'M NOT LONELY. LONELINESS ISN'T PERMANENT. I AM FABULOUS. I AM IN LOVE. I MIGHT JUST ELOPE BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME NOT TO BECAUSE I AM FABULOUS." _Then she would dramatically flip her hair and strut out of there.

_If only such things weren't judged in society…_

Leah eats at a table outside, with a lovely view of the ocean right in front of her eyes, and waits for her mother to pick up the phone. She doesn't answer, and instead of leaving a message, Leah calls again. The phone is picked up on the third ring, and a very flustered-sounding Sue answers, "Hello?"

"Hey, Mom," Leah says.

"Oh, hey, Lee," Sue replies. "What's going on?"

"Do you have time?"

"Not exactly." The background noise is filled with chaos. Her voice is distant when she yells to someone other than Leah. "Oh, goddammit, Elijah!" she shouts. "Could you stop spilling for once!?"

Leah shifts the phone to her other ear and takes a bite of her sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. Sue has other, more important things going on; Leah just may not get a word in, after all.

Another distant voice screams, "Don't yell at the baby, Sue!" It's female, so it must be Alaska, Sue's first child-in-law.

"I yelled at my kids and they turned out just fine, Alaska!" Sue shouts back. "Fucking hell, it's like I can't get a break around here!" There's a pause. "No, Charlie, _you_ calm down," she adds.

"Well, shit," Leah mutters.

"What'd you just say?" Sue asks.

"Nothing." It's a swift lie. "How're things going?"

Leah can sense the eye-rolling from two states south. It's so obvious where she got it from; it's kind of funny. "Crazy," Sue replies.

"How so?"

"Seth's been crazy-busy at work and Alaska's been trying to get back to work, too, so she always drops her hollering child over at me and Charlie's place, but she's always coming back, always tending to him. The girl doesn't know shit about raising a child. Sometimes you just have to _leave them alone. _The reason why Elijah's crying so much is only because his paranoid mama's always coming and leaving."

Leah snorts. The domestic life sounds like a shitty choice. "You're one thug of a grandma," she remarks.

Sue doesn't think it's funny. "Well, I'm fucking trying," she says. "You wouldn't even know. You haven't worked a day in your life!"

Leah is taken back. With her cell phone locked in a vice grip in her hand, her eyebrows knit closer and her mood is intensified a few notches. "A day in my life, my ass," she responds to her mother. "I'm on my lunch break right now, actually."

"Well, color me fucked and surprised," Sue says, "because I've heard nothing of it. How's life going for you, eh? Still alone? You making enough money?"

"More than _you_," Leah informs her harshly. "My life's going really well."

"Still alone, though?" Sue wonders.

God, if Sue was saying this shit two years ago, she would've seen the worst of it. "I'm not," Leah replies.

"Then where's Ryder, huh?" Her faint native accent is accentuated on some syllables, and it pisses Leah off even further. "It's like you can't keep a good man once you've got one, Leah," Sue adds. "I really don't know what's wrong with you."

Leah's so angry she's shaking. She's shaking so hard that it's like the first time she phased, and ironically enough, she was angry with her mother that time, too. "Ryder. Is. Gone," she says, her teeth clenched.

"Then who is there for you?" Sue asks. "Lee, I want another grandkid that's not of Seth's before I die, you know."

"This isn't about you!" Leah nearly yells. Customers at the various other tables turn and glance at her before quickly looking away. "I am dating a man named Wes and he's great. He's thirty-two and amazing, and the greatest thing about him is that _he knows how to listen._"

"Well, that's great, Leah," Sue says, though it's almost positive she's thinking the opposite. "When can I meet him?"

"In all honesty," Leah begins, "I don't want you to meet him at all."

"And why's that?"

"Mom, you're a bitch."

"You're going to hell for that."

"And I'll see you there."

Leah abruptly hangs up, and she just growls into her sandwich. Her mother is the worst person she knows, and the worst thing about her relationship with her is that no matter how much Leah doesn't want to, they always make up. It's much easier at home; it's been like this ever since she was twelve. Sue and Leah would fight over something stupid—mostly something rude that the other person said, since neither woman has ever really held back—and they would _absolutely despise_ each other for minutes (maybe even hours) in the worst way possible. They would mutter mean things about each other and call each other a bitch. Harry used to be the median that would make everything okay again, but since he died, Sue and Leah's fights stayed bad for longer. Seth never knew what to do, so he didn't do anything. It was always Sue vs. Leah. Leah vs. Sue. Fire vs. Fire. In the end, though, after those few minutes or hours of hatred, one of them would say sorry (it always alternated) and they would be loving to each other again over trash reality television and fried food only for the cycle to begin the next day, or maybe even later that night. It was a stupid, trivial cycle, but it always happened, over and over _and over._

This isn't home, though—at least, not the same home. Leah can't feel like a sorry little girl again and knock on her mother's bedroom door, cry a little bit, say she's sorry, and end up inhaling so-fucking-delicious-you-could-just-have-an-orgasm -right-here-and-now, calorie-filled fry bread ("a foreign recipe," Sue always used to say) in front of _Maury_.

This isn't that home at all, and Leah knows for a fact that Sue is definitely not going to apologize first. It doesn't matter what she initially said; she was called a bitch and Leah was the person who hung up first. Leah's got the shit end of the stick this time, and it fucking sucks.

Sweaty and almost late back to work, Leah tries to get over the little dispute she had with her bipolar (_God, she hates throwing out terms like that derogatively but it's probably true_) giver of life. She gets lost in the Dewey Decimal System. She helps little kids sign up for summer reading programs with tacky prizes. Nobody stops by to ask for a surf book, which is good; she couldn't stand to fall in love all over again. That's just not healthy.

Leah doesn't have a surf lesson today, and even though she wouldn't want to admit it, all just to keep Wes' feelings intact, she doesn't mind. Wes is trying to train her like a champ, but she surfs recreationally. She's not very good at it, but she's learned a few things, one of them being to always wear a wetsuit since string bikinis are faulty and the entire beach shouldn't get to see her boobs. Wes is a competitive guy—especially in surfing—but he just hasn't grasped that Leah's not aiming for that.

However, when she visits his house that night, he has other things in mind. Maybe Leah won't have to get so competitive, after all.

Leah prefers Wes' house much more than her own; her own place is neat—too neat—and a bit boring. It's characterless, which is probably the strangest thing about Leah. She likes to think of herself as a real person; it's a shame that her home doesn't speak for that.

But Wes' house—Wes' house is different.

Wes' house is a house of achievement and victory. It's also personal. In his two stories, he has a wide, spread-out living room with a nice kitchen that he barely knows how to use. His room takes up the entire next floor, which is also spacious. It has what looks like hundreds of surfing trophies, which is pretty impressive. He even has family pictures, and his parents and older sister look as preppy as they sound. It's kind of funny. Wes doesn't consider the roof a floor, but it's a loft of sorts, and it overlooks the ocean. It. Is. Glorious.

Yes, Wes' home is much cooler than Leah's.

Leah and Wes cook dinner together after work, and it feels natural. Leah's used to cooking for herself, but Wes is great help. He says he "supervises," which only causes Leah to throw diced tomatoes at his face, which leads to an all-out war. It's like Leah never felt like absolute shit in the first place. Wes does wonders for her.

It's a Friday, and Leah doesn't have work tomorrow, so she spends the night at Wes' place. She doesn't go back to her own house to retrieve clothes to sleep in, so she sleeps in one of Wes' shirts. He thinks it's sexy; she wholeheartedly agrees. He suggests they sleep in his room, but she wants to sleep on the roof. She takes his hand as he leads the way, blankets slung over his shoulder. The roof is already her favorite thing of Wes' house besides the primary residence himself.

It's one thing to make love to the man you love, but it's another to do it on a hot summer night under the stars. It's cheesy, but it's fucking _beautiful._ It's wonderful and celestial and all kinds of brilliant. It's superb. Mesmerizing.

And that's what Leah and Wes are, together: wonderful, celestial, brilliant, superb, and mesmerizing. There's no doubting it.

After a hot and sweaty session, Wes tells Leah that he got an opportunity.

"What do you mean?" she asks, wiping wet strands of hair back from his forehead.

"We can move to Gold Coast," he states with a faint smile on her face, like he's thinking of living there—wherever that is—already.

"Where's that?" Leah wonders. "Aren't we already on the golden coast?"

Wes laughs and shakes his head. "No, no, Gold Coast, _Australia_."

"Australia?"

"It's the best surfing place in the world. My cousins got the opportunity to go, but they need to stay for business. I've got two tickets, and I had this wild, amazing dream that I could live there with the lady I love."

"What a lucky lady," Leah says goofily.

"So, would you like to escort me to Australia?" he asks. "Please?"

"You don't even have to ask me twice," she replies. "We're going to Australia."

"We're going to Australia?"

Leah's voice echoes in the night when she yells, "We're going to Australia!"


	12. Interlacing

_**A/N: **__Just two more chapters (and an author's note) left! I'll be acknowledging each and every one of you. :)_

* * *

**XII**

Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia is a beautiful place. If Wes hadn't already captured Leah's heart first, it would belong to that city. A month after agreeing to move, the two—well, one-and-a-half—surfers land in Gold Coast, and just by looking out her window, Leah is in love. It's not just a surfer's paradise; it's just about anyone's paradise, and that makes her really happy. She'll never get bored of such scenery—she just knows it.

"_12. Day and night cycles are natural. Humans only sleep at night because we used to avoid predators in the dark because of our poor eyesight. Stay awake until 5am watching bad reality shows. Wake up at 7pm and have breakfast."_

Gold Coast is literally on the other side of the world, and seventeen hours ahead of La Push, but Leah hasn't told her mom she moved. She doesn't hate her mom—she swears she doesn't. Their relationship may be hot and cold and totally dramatic, but she doesn't hate Sue. She could never. It's taken Leah a little while to understand something about her erratic mother, and it's that she never fully means what she says. Her emotions don't last forever—at least, not the mean ones. Leah knows damn well that Sue didn't stay mad at her for long. She may have complained to Charlie once, but she didn't stay that mad—Leah's positive of it.

She just doesn't know how this is going to play out.

Everything's messing with her head, though, and not even her mom had to participate in that: there's the fact that it's December and summer is just beginning; the utter jetlag that makes her head feel heavy but her body feel energetic—too energetic; the fact that she just spent over forty hours traveling… Just everything. She feels well-traveled, but she knows she's not going to get any sleep tonight; Leah is wide awake, and her body feels like it's still the morning, though it's six in the evening.

After halfway getting over the fact that yes, they are driving on the left side of the road and no, they are not going to crash, Leah tries to take in the view as she and Wes hop in a taxi to their new house, and _God_ is it beautiful—no, not even that; Gold Coast is paradise. Leah hopes she can find work as a photographer or something interesting. She likes going through library catalogues and designing web pages because she's good at it, but once fate offers you an opportunity so much grander than life itself, what do you do with it? Do you take that chance, or shy away for the typical? Do you stick to what you know because it's a safe haven, or find yourself in what you don't because, honestly, life is too short? Leah's not going to make the same mistake—not again. This is Leah's choice, and the best thing about it is that it is _all hers._

Life really is short for Leah now. She wouldn't like to phase, but now, as she is thirty-one years old, she realizes the truth. Twelve years ago (_damn, twelve?_) she would have heard the saying "life is short" and laughed. _Life is short? Life is SHORT? Shit, life is the longest thing anyone takes part in! What can you possibly do that is longer than life!?_ Leah would have laughed and laughed and laughed. She didn't get it back then.

As Wes strokes her hand, his eyes just as exhausted as hers are alert, Leah knows she won't have him forever. _Forever_—whatever that really is—isn't her thing. What does she look like? Bella Cullen? Never. Forever isn't a real thing, and pretty soon, Leah's gonna be eighty and sitting there like, "Shit, I'm eighty. Where did all my teeth go? Why am I so short?" This makes her laugh a little, but she's not scared. She used to be scared of dying alone, but now she knows she won't. It would be ridiculous for her to say she and Wes are going to last forever; he's just her third boyfriend… ever. She might not die with him, but there will be someone there. And she knows why because it's her choice.

Leah's been alone for years on end by choice—just not really her choice—but _this_ is her choice. She's never had many choices, and for her to admit, _Yes, yes, and YES, this is my choice_ is the greatest thing in the world all because it's true.

She can hear Wes's soft snoring (it'll get louder in a second), and she's not mad that he's dozing off. Normally, she'd shake him awake and tell him to look at the paradise just outside the window, but they have time—not forever, but time. That's all it takes. Because, damn, they're not on vacation; Leah and Wes live here now. They're American-Australians and they live here. They're a couple of Native Americans from La Push and Puerto Rican-Russian (Wes likes to call it "Russiarican," which is an awfully interesting mix to Leah) from Long Beach, now living in Australia. Crazy. Leah wishes she could call her mom now; if Sue can ever get over her upcoming anger, maybe she can visit in the future. It would cost a lot of money, but it has to happen.

Leah has met Wes' parents on a few occasions back in California, and they're as preppy as Wes described them, though they live in California as opposed to Connecticut. Their names are Vitaly and Camila, they live in Bel Air, and call their son Wesley, and despite his father having an English surname, he is Russian, with an accent and everything—Vitaly's mother, or Wes' grandmother, changed his last name for some reason or another. Camila is Puerto Rican and the shortest—yet intimidating—woman Leah's ever met. The parents together are uptight, but a force to be reckon with. For such conservative people, it's crazy how Vitaly and Camila ended up together in the first place. Then again, you never know where you find love. Leah's had experience of that. She doesn't know how the stars must have been aligned for her to meet Wes, but she did, and she's proud of it.

The taxi finally arrives at Leah and Wes' new house, and Leah shakes her sleeping boyfriend awake. He blinks quickly, his eyes bloodshot and weary and his perfect lips pouting, and runs a hand through his dark brown curls. "We're here?" he asks.

"We're here."

The new house isn't very big, but it's not cramped, either. It's also right next to the water; so close that Leah could stand in it with her trusty Canon G1X camera and take amazing photos. It's like she's on the edge of the earth. She can just feel it.

The house is a one-story, but it's bigger on the inside than it looks. It's spacious and comfortable, with two nice bedrooms (as if one will be used, anyway) and a reasonably-sized kitchen next to a reasonably-sized living room. It's a reasonable house, and that is fine. Leah's and Wes' items and cars won't be here until tomorrow, so they'll have to make do with sleeping bags on the beach—it sounds better than ever.

Leah takes a very dazed Wes through the house, and she realizes that this is perfect. Just perfect. She and Wes have their own little house on the edge of the earth. This is what it feels like to have a dream come true, as cheesy as that sounds. Leah can't find the will to cringe, though. Either she's lost her spark, or she's just grown up. The latter makes a lot more sense.

_*.*.*_

The jetlag is worse than they ever thought it could be, but Leah—especially Leah—and Wes aren't the biggest travelers… at least, this far out. It takes them a week-and-a-half for them to get used to the time zone—and the fact that American dollars don't work here and the ever-so-interesting home slang as well as other things, including officially moving in—but it eventually happens. The problem is that they can't stick with it all the time.

On Christmas Eve, it just hits Leah that she did nothing to prepare for the holiday, but that happens every time. She hasn't _really_ celebrated Christmas in years, so it's just like a regular day. She's not alone, though, and she feels shitty for not doing anything about it with Wes, but he says it's fine. He always says it's fine; she's still waiting for the day her biting sarcasm really gets to him and he gets mad.

Wes and Leah can't stick to the time zone ways on Christmas Eve, though, and they end up watching a peculiar Australian sitcom in their bedroom until two in the morning. Wes looks at the time and mutters, "Aw, shit."

"What?" Leah asks, fully engrossed in the show. It's so bad it was probably cancelled, but she's more interested than normal.

Wes stands up and exits their bedroom; Leah doesn't follow him. He eventually comes back, in his piss-tired, boxer-clad state with his hands behind his back.

The light from the television illuminates half of Leah's face when she turns to him. "What're you hiding behind your back?" she wonders.

Wes struggles to find the right words, something that's never really happened with him before, and finally sighs. "I… Leah, I love you. I love the fact that I met you and we started dating and you came here with me and we're actually living here now. I know we don't have that much money, but, lady, if we did, I would buy you everything in the world just to try to compare how much you're worth to me… Wait, no. No. Leah Felicity Clearwater, you are priceless and amazing and I just want you to know that I am in love with you. I'm in love with your soul and your hair and your smile. I'm in love with how open you are with me. I'm in love with how honest you were about telling me you used to turn into a wolf. Leah, you are pretty damn perfect to me, and even if you say you're not, you are. And even if you're not, by some wild chance, I don't care. I'm stuck with you. And—"

"Wes, you might as well have written me a book," Leah interrupts. "What are you getting at?"

He finally takes his hands from behind his back and presents Leah with a diamond ring. An engagement ring. "Leah, you're the best thing's that ever happened to me," he says, "and I've gotta ask… Do you wanna get married?"

Leah's jaw drops, and she's wordless for a second until she explodes. "WESLEY BEAUFORT, YOU IDIOT," she yells so all of Gold Coast can hear her. "OF COURSE I WANT TO GET MARRIED, OH MY GOD, WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO?"

So at two in the morning, wearing a familiar purple dress and a diamond ring on the appropriate finger, Leah escorts Wes to a Vegas-like chapel in the middle of the city, and they go through all the boring paperwork, but it's not as boring because they have each other. It's a little difficult since they just moved from the United States and everything, but by the time the sun rises on Christmas morning, Leah Felicity Clearwater's surname is changed to Beaufort. It's not bad—it's heavenly.

The newlyweds go to a diner—one of the only diners open on Christmas—once it's all said and done, and they both have vegemite for the first time. It's the most Australian thing they've done here, and Leah wouldn't mind not trying it a second time. Once going home, they realize how tired they really are, and they sleep like the dead only to rise again at seven in the evening.

Leah calls her mother once she wakes up to wish her a merry Christmas, but it's two in the morning over in La Push. Sue is dead-tired when Leah tells her she's in Australia—for good—and married, so she doesn't believe her at first. Sue asks if she's drunk and why she's up at two, but Leah just laughs and tells her again: she's married to Wes, and they live in Australia. Or the events are in the opposite order, she supposes. Sue tiredly laughs it off, and the only thing that makes sense is the last thing she says. "Oh, you silly girl. I just hope you're happy."


	13. Awakening

_**A/N: **__I just realized I've written three proposals—ever—and I still don't know how to do it right. Sigh. Maybe that's just how it's meant to be for someone who's never had romantic experience. (I'm a bit of a Leah myself.) I now present the last chapter._

* * *

**XIII**

"Leah Felicity Clearwater," Sue begins to reprimand over the phone, only to be unsure again, "wait, what's your new last name again?"

Leah smiles and looks over at her husband of six months, Wes Beaufort. She's thirty-one-and-a-half now; it's crazy to know that she's known him since she was twenty-nine. Time goes by fast, and this only makes her realize that it's better than time not passing at all. Change can't occur without time.

"Beaufort," Leah replies, still staring at the man she loves. His face will never get old to her; it just seems to be looking better every single day. "My new last name is Beaufort."

"Beaufort," Sue repeats. "That's beautiful. Leah Beaufort. I like it. Now, what was I saying…? Yes! What on earth did you send me, Leah?"

Leah imagines her mother toying with the jar of vegemite she sent her in her hands, and eventually putting it in the kitchen cabinet to never be used, which is probably a good thing. Leah sent souvenirs from Australia, including but not limited to vegemite and a picture of her and Wes, which are both merely to be looked at and occasionally touched.

_Can I see it? _Wes mouths. Leah nods and hands the phone to Wes. From what Sue's heard of him and from how much she's talked to him, she loves it, which isn't a hard thing to do; he's so accepting, after all. It's like he can relate to just about anyone, or try the best he can and still be convincing.

So with Wes on the line, Leah knows he can explain it better than her. Wes clears his throat and says, "Mrs. Clearwater? I mean, Sue? Yeah, it's Wes… I'm well, thank you. How are you? …Oh, that's great. So what Leah and I sent you is this crazy thing called vegemite… Yeah, it's food. It's like a spread. …No, it's not like Nutella. So here's the thing: vegemite is to be used moderately—in moderation. It's not like peanut butter; it's so rich, oh my God, it's like gravy, I swear."

And so he goes on to explain vegemite, and Leah finds this funny. Not humorous, but just funny. This is one of the most trivial things that could happen right now, but it means so much at the same time. She might even remember this when she's eighty. She might—no, she'll make it a _plan_ to—remember that she sat on the beach with her husband in the dead of winter (only it's not that cold, really) and explained to her mother what vegemite is. After being taught everything she knows from Sue, she can finally teach her something, and she might understand it. Maybe that was just a secondary goal Leah was trying to reach, after all: communicating with her mother, or at least trying to. The fights were worth it. She doesn't care what anyone has to say about it, because things are finally working out. Wes once described her relationship with her mother as "toxic," when that's really not entirely true. It's dramatic, but at least they make up. Now they can finally understand and accept each other.

Which, of course, only adds to her happiness. Leah used to be the _angry, lonely girl_. At the beginning, she took a little pride in it—she had a trademark. She was a little special. That was cool until she realized no one wanted to be around her. She never knew how great it was to have a choice until she got it, and that's the best feeling of all. Sure, shifting isn't the worst thing in the world; there are still starving children in third-world countries and people committing suicide everyday and the national debt. Shifting is for her brothers she left behind, but it's not for her, and that's okay. After taking so, _so_ long to finally figure it out, Leah finally knows it's perfectly acceptable to have different wants and needs. It doesn't make her a problem or a special snowflake; it makes her happy. It makes her feel refresh and cleansed, and honestly, a better person. Not a new one, but better—much better. Being the angry, lonely girl was fine for a little while, but she'd rather feel happy. That's her choice, and it's the best damn choice she's ever made.

She looks over to her husband, and he's laughing and smiling and talking to his mother-in-law. It's heaven. Leah never thought she'd have two important parts of her lives—both of them, the messy and the neat—thrive together, but they are, and it makes sense. It makes so much fucking sense, and that's a first. Not only is it relieving for her to make sense to herself, but for other parts of her to coexist in non-supernatural ways.

Leah Beaufort takes in a deep breath, closes her eyes, and continues to sit next to the man she loves. She's never been opposed to the normal; just opposed to the typical, and there's a difference between those things. This can't get better; it's already at its best. That one quote, "It gets better," is no longer bullshit to Leah. Things get better when you're Leah. Especially when you finally make a choice.

"_13. Eat when you are hungry. Being bored does not constitute a chocolate bar. Sleep when you are tired. Do not mindlessly obey the sleep at night rule. If you are not tired, do not sleep." _

She is awake.

* * *

_**Fin.**_


	14. Commentating (End Notes)

**XIV**

* * *

_Readers,_

_Let me tell y'all a thang._

_I've always wanted to write a wholesome Leah story, but with experience from beta-ing Leah-centric stories, I knew what kind of audience I'd be dealing with._

_You see, I'm not really a Leah writer. She's my favorite character, but I've never known what to really do with her, writing-wise, so I became a writer of Jacob and Bella. I've always had plenty of ideas for them. So when I decided I wanted to write a Leah-centric story, I knew the audience would be totally different, and this is probably the best audience I've ever had._

_Leah fans are a bit like the character: a little outspoken, definitely honest, and very unapologetic. I'll tell you guys right now, you kind of tore me down a little, lol. And I. Loved. Every. Minute. Of. It. I write for the readers. That's always been my thing. So when the readers were getting really vocal about it, I felt like I could fly. I was like, "Yes, yes, yes! Tell me how you feel!" So I was determined to get better and better, and I think I might have._

_The idea of this story came much later than the inspiration. For one thing, I didn't listen to one song while writing this story; I wrote in pure silence. No Lana Del Rey. No Marina and the Diamonds. Nothing. Writing stuff inspired by music has kind of been my own personal trademark, and I think I may have to do that more often. Cleansing is different from anything I've ever written, and I'm proud of it. Instead of music, I looked at this list I reblogged a while from my Tumblr. It was written by a non-professional, so maybe I shouldn't have used it, but I did, anyway. I hope they don't mind. I really hope I wrote something they would be proud of if they ever come across it in the future. I thought it was a really great list, and later I decided it would pump me up for a Leah fanfic. And so it did._

_With writing a Leah story, I knew I would have to keep her in character a bit, but this story takes place over such a long time (about six years). I knew she wasn't going to live in the woods and phase all the time; she was going to have a life. It's what I wanted, and also what I thought she would want. Breaking Dawn (yeah, that hot mess) left her with such an open, empty ending, and I didn't like how that happened._

_So I gave Leah a life after Breaking Dawn. I wanted her to have relationships, though, and I never planned on Sue being in the picture. In this story, Leah treats the pack as one unit—they all get married and have kids and everything in the end, so why not? At first, though, I wanted her to have more of a relationship with Seth, until I realized that was turning into a Sue thing. I've read maybe two Sues in fanfiction, so I inspired her after the motherly figure I know best: my own mother. (In all honesty, I got a little nervous when you guys were bad-mouthing Sue so much. I was like, "That's my mother you're talking shit about!") Sue is a lot like my mom, only worse. She's like my mom on a bad—okay, a really bad—day, but I think she ended up okay. Moms are fierce. You don't really have to be one to know that, you know?_

_I also gave Leah relationships other than the one with Sue, too: Ryder and Wes. To be honest, I've always wanted to write a fic with the names Ryder and Wes in them; I thought those names were so cool, and I still do think that. Ryder would have been around for longer, but I pushed him out. I didn't have an image of him in my head, and I never thought he was good for Leah in the first place. We all know how that worked out. I found Wes to be different, though; I found him to kind of baffle Leah. I mean, Leah was always rejected to me, in and out of the pack. She never belonged, but then there came Wes, who really did love her for her—all of her—and not the fact that he was like her, because he really wasn't. I don't usually get that into my stories (or at least let it show, lol), but I thought that was a nice touch. I've been in exactly zero romantic relationships in my entire life—I've never even been kissed, imagine that—but I like to absorb things like a sponge. You don't need experience to get an idea of it, and I think that's the greatest thing about the brain; it imagines, and it gets inspired. That's fantastic to me._

_So yeah, that was my little author's commentary. Now, for the actual good part, a thanks to those who reviewed:_

_-Lady Blackwater_

_-Clara Meliza_

_-lucky97mary_

_-Master Gaga_

_-Inosolan_

_-Firefly-class_

_-Miyukiyama_

_-Guest from Chapter 8_

_-Guest from Chapter 9_

_-Guest from Chapter 10_

_-Princessinthecorner16_

_-Guest from Chapter 11_

_-Dee3_

_-Guest from Chapter 12_

_Thank you all. I love each and every one of you. Also, thanks so much for the follows and favorites, as well. They light up my day so much, you have no idea._

_And that was Cleansing. :) I think it was a fine fiftieth story. Can't wait to hit 100. Then I think I'll rest._

_Much, much adoration from your musical Twilighter (who just might be lovely, too),_

_MusicTwilightLove. [infinite x's and o's]_


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